The Konoha Revolution
by metalmiked48
Summary: Peace. A hero is exiled. Sadness. Tyranny. A people grow restless. A hero returns. Politics. Revolution. This is what happens when one man is willing to do whatever is necessary to save his village and his love. Formerly Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hi, this is metalmiked48 again, starting a completely new story with a plot bunny that flopped into my head approximately 10 minutes ago. I know I've left all my Heartbreaker readers hanging for the past week or so and I apologize for that, but the reason is that I sorta don't know where to go with it besides a possible love triangle idea (those are always fun) but other than that I made the mistake of setting myself up to deliver with serious drama which I still know next to nothing of how to write. Anyway, I'll try to do something with that soon so until then, here's a really angsty fic from Naruto's first person view. I'm still trying to straighten out where this falls in the timeline, but I know this will be a very sarcastic, somewhat bitter view of Naruto under the mask that we see so often. Depending on how you read into Naruto's personality this could be way, waaaay OOC, but I'll try my best.**

*beep* *beeeep*. _Fuck._ *click* _Another day._ I sat up in bed thinking of what to do today. _Gotta go train if I wanna be Hokage._ Of course. Hokage. What else. I got up and summoned a clone to go make some breakfast while I went to go tidy up. I got to the bathroom and looked in the mirror while I got ready to go brush my teeth. _God you're an ugly motherfucker._ Low self esteem, you must be thinking. Well, shit happens when the one girl that you'd worked endlessly for treated you like dirt for the longest time in favor of a dick with no redeeming social traits besides looks apparently. Of course not moving on since with her doing the same hasn't helped much either. Despite the fact that said dick has sworn to kill her, me, and everyone in the village.

Feeling decidedly fresher, I went to the prepared breakfast of ramen. I don't know why I'm addicted to the shit, but I am. _Maybe I'll go to Ichiraku's for lunch. But I gotta pick up Sakura-Chan's present first._ Ah, yes, Sakura-Chan's birthday. The one dependable day when she's in a good enough mood to give me a hug even without a present. Who knows what will happen when I show up with the sushi of one her favorite restaurants, which also happens to be one of the most expensive in Konoha. Wishful thinking indeed. I'd ask her on a date there, but I don't want to put her through the agony of the somewhat more apologetic turndowns she's implemented since I came back from training with Ero-Sennin which essentially consists of her floundering for some sort of lame excuse. That, and the fact that, and this brings a pit to the stomach, I'm not sure they'll serve me on account of "demonic issues." Guess I'll find out. Besides, this is the _good stuff_.

Not wanting to put forth the effort to teleport, I got my crap together, sage cloak and all (the one thing I've ever worn that made me feel like a badass), and took the rooftops direct to the training grounds. I sat down and meditated. All was calm. _There it is._ I felt the waves of natural energy flow to me, penetrate my being, and continue through, mixing my chakra on its way. I noticed the disturbance of air flow caused by the flutter of a butterfly approximately thirty meters away. I stood, noticing the different feeling in my eyes, and the new vibrancy pervading my vision. Being the Toad Sage kicks ass.

About two hours of practicing frog katas and my new senjutsu and I was still raring to go. I knew I needed to stop though. With a combination of the toad healing chakra and the kyuubi chakra, I could pretty much be hit by a boulder the size of Chouji's juggernaut and be ready to run a marathon 30 seconds later, but if I didn't keep it short and sweet my mind would turn off and I'd be a lumbering mass of ninjutsu stumbling through worthless training. I decided to turn in and run my main errand.

_Ah, Konoha..._ I love this village. I can even walk down the street nowadays and only get three random death glares per block! _There's Ichiraku! I have to wait though!_ I resisted temptation offering the "I will later" wave to Ayame Nee-chan who knew it was too early for me to be coming by for lunch. _I think the place is up here a bit. Ah! Here it is!_ The place was huge. Already feeling nervous, I wandered inside. I went up to the hostess to ask to order some takeout. _Oh shit..._ Thewoman visibly paled when I came up to her, but in an odd way she seemed more sorry for me than scared for herself. "I'm so sorry, Naruto-sama," she said as she reached for a little red button inside of her podium.

"It's not your fault you work for a bigot..." I half mumbled half whispered in response.

Almost immediately upon the button being pushed, a short, stubby old fart that looked to be three rice balls from a cardiac arrest came storming out of his lair in the back of the restaurant shouting, much to the shock of many of his customers, "Get out Demon! Get the hell outta my shop!!!"

"Please sir, I'm just picking something up for a friend. I'll pay double." I had to get something from this shop. This was Sakura's favorite. The same customers were again shocked at the astronomical price I was willing to pay with no hesitation.

"I SAID GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY SHOP!!!!" There was no talking to this guy. If that vein on his forehead got any bigger it would burst. The pretty young hostess looked on the verge of tears, obviously in the generation that has no idea why this charming hero of the village is treated like less than dirt by some of its more conservative citizens.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," I said as I turned the other cheek, desperately trying to keep my bitterness from affecting my tone while stretching my proud mask across my face as quick as possible. My bitterness and sense of right and wrong, however, was greatly appeased, however, when a couple of groups that were still in the early stages of their meal were paying for their stuff and leaving. After hengeing my way through that little ordeal, I put it in my fridge back at my apartment and went back out to train some more.

_Time to practice Dad's jutsu._ I once again felt the sage chakra flowing through my body and I began doing katas at about four per second. I should really work on getting my speed up with those. _Miroi Senka no Jutsu!_ *tsyu* _There we go._ *tsyu* _ Workin fine._ What a convenient jutsu. I'm so lucky dad put down the basics for it. The only next step was to cut the metaphysical link to a medium like a kunai. Some kage bunshin training and _viola_: transportation senjutsu. Their faces when the image in front of them but an instant before suddenly has a kunai to their neck...priceless...

A couple hours of that and I was done yet again. Half hour till team practice. What to do. _Ah! Of course!_ A genuine smile on my face, I began to mosey on over to my favorite restaurant in all of the world. "One miso, Jii-san!" I lit up as I went underneath the awning to be greeted with my two childhood caretakers and his daughter.

"Comin' right up."

"Oi Naruto! How you been?"

"Just fine Iruka-Sensei." I paused, considering how to keep the small talk with my former sensei interesting. "Had a bit of a run in with a sushi chef earlier but other than that I'm great."

I watched confusion, amusement, and finally half-joking concern pass his face. "You didn't do anything did you?"

"He almost got me with one o' those big ol' cleavers but a rasengan in his nutsack showed him who was boss." I said as I began slurping up my ramen with vigor.

"That's the hero of the village. This one's on me."

"Thanks a ton." I finished up my surprisingly human amount of ramen that I've tried to get used to having. "I wish I could stay and talk but I've gotta go train with Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei."

"I won't keep you. Give 'em hell, Naruto."

"See ya Iruka sensei." I got up and began my rooftop journey to good old, overly nostalgic training ground 7. _There she is..._ And thus my mental composure was almost completely ruined. Luckily I've trained myself to the point where I can train against her while almost completely forgetting that I could maim her at any moment, but I can't help but hold back even the tiniest bit beyond the reasonable sparring point and it pisses her off to no end. But today... today she was absolutely glowing. That shining face... That shiny pink hair... Those eyes... That ass... The perkiest C-cups you ever did see... What I'd give to-- _Down boy!! Now is definitely not the time to randomly pitch a tent!_

"Hi Sakura-chan!" She was leaning lazily on the railing of the bridge on which we always reconnoiter, only making those legs look even better.

"Hey Naruto-kun," she responded with almost as much inthusiasm. Hearing the suffix was like feeling her very breath on the tip of my--

"Happy Birthday!" I said, trying my best to walk up nonchalantly.

"Thanks!" she said, as I got the contact from her I'd been waiting for all day. God she must really love it when it's her birthday. As they pressed up upon my lower chest, I tried to summon to mind any complicated science problems to at least cut the blood flow halfway. After three seconds I looked at her face to make sure she hadn't had a seizure and passed out or something. As much as I was enjoying this, she couldn't have been all that much... could she? _God she's pretty_... When I looked, my sight was greeted with, among other things, closed eyes and a content, almost joyful smile. _Is...Is that...? _ Two seconds later her eyes snapped open as if remembering something and she quickly, yet still gently pulled away with a playfully shameful and demure smile on her face. The four extreme centers of my mind wanted to ask her on a date, ask if she was feeling okay, turn her around and mount her right there, or ask if she was huffing. My mind somehow finding reason I, as always, went with none.

"Umm... I... I don't have your present with me, but I promise to get it to you right after we're done here." I said, slowly regaining composure.

"Promise?" I put on my best shit-eating grin.

"That's the promise of a lifetime!" She giggled in as much of a school-girlish fashion as a deadly ninja can.

"Heh heh heh..." Oh shit. And right after I nailed it too. That was a man's voice so it wasn't Sakura, and I don't even know how to laugh that creepily so that only leaves--

"Kakashi-sensei... how long have you been there?" Sakura inquisitively chimed in, obviously hoping he hadn't witnessed our personal moment.

"Long enough to know how happy you are that it's your birthday," he said with that eye smile. _Bastard._ She quickly moved about five feet away, much to me and my hormones' dismay. "Sorry about C-blockin' you Naruto but I believe in you. You'll get some eventually." It was as if he had gathered up all of the redness that had been on her face, put it on mine and replaced it with confusion. _SHE'S RIGHT THERE ASSHOLE!!!!!_ "Anyway... let's get to training."

After three hours of surprisingly not that awkward training, we decided it was time to end for the day. "We're gonna have morning practice tomorrow so be here at eight."

"Only if you do." I recalled the countless years of getting up at ungodly hours (as compared to my regular crack of noon anyway) only to wait endlessly for an uncommitted sensei.

"You know I can't promise that. What if an old lady needs help across a road? Dismissed." He disappeared in the signature swirl of leaves, leaving no chance for further arguments.

"Bye Naruto-kun," she said loftily, baiting me for the walk home and the present she obviously hasn't forgotten about. I obliged.

"Let me walk you home!" She turned as if in victory with that deceptively demure-over-cheer expression to let me walk alongside her. We were lucky enough all this time that my house was actually on the way to her house.

She looked as if she was happy to just be in my company. That couldn't be the case, could it? Laughing at all my dumb jokes, chuckling at the _really_ dumb ones. It's almost as if... No, don't get your hopes up man... We came upon my apartment eventually. I told her to wait at the door and when she looked surprised, confused, and a little hurt, I quickly explained that I wanted it to be a surprise, it would only be a second, and my place was messy as all get out, knowing that if she kept that look up for another couple seconds I would crack. I quickly located the ornate box in my fridge and brought it down. I swung open the door and her eyes lit up like a little kid on... well... his birthday (wow... metaphor block...). I grinned from ear to ear.

"Oh my God Naruto! From Mizuryu! This must've cost a ton! I hope this didn't put you out of house and home..." My grin dispelled her worries. "Oh thank you Naruto-kun!!" She was hugging me again. _E=mc... Oh god..._ I couldn't help it. I returned her hug and she melted into my arms. I thought she was gonna go to sleep or something. Fuck it; if she was gonna flounder, then she was gonna flounder.

"Sakura-chan, you wanna go have dinner with me tomorrow night?" I asked, and congratulated myself in my head soon after for saying it perfectly: not too aggressively, not too apathetically.

She looked up with a shimmer in her eyes. "I'd love to."_ ...YES!!!_

"Awesome," I said, trying to keep some of the elation out of my voice. "I'll pick you up at seven!" The rest of the short walk to her house was filled with comfortable quiet.

"Right, I'll see you tomorrow morning Sakura-chan!"

"Bye, and thanks again, Naruto-kun!" Ahh. What a night. The one girl I've ever felt anything for is actually giving me a chance!

I walked back to my front door. _Ah shit..._ I felt the slightest chakra pulse, the indication of an oncoming Anbu squad undershooting the detection range of a target shinobi. That target shinobi was me. Immediately I was flanked by three Anbu who surrounded me in a triangle with kunai ready to go toward my vitals at a given word. "What's the meaning of this!!!" I tried my best angry distinguished ninja voice and rightfully so.

Another Anbu with slightly more distinguished looking robes came up behind the one in front of me and held a scroll. "The Rokudaime Hokage has demanded your presence immediately. This is a warrant for your arrest."

"On what grounds!?"

"Endangerment of the citizens of Konoha." My anger at this point was being mixed with confusion.

"Based on what actions!?!"

The Anbu was getting peeved at my inability to follow an order. "All will be discussed when you are in the Hokage's office."

"eeh whatever..." I was speaking through my teeth. How dare they ruin this wonderful moment of mine!

We roof jumped to the Hokage's office, with two of the Anbu having kunai drawn at all times. We made it inside the office of Danzo, the sixth Hokage. "Ah, here he is." His sickeningly content smile twisted into a serious expression. "Namikaze Naruto, on account of your status of a jinchuuriki no longer being dangerous to you outside of the village and the danger to the citizens it poses while you are still here, you are hereby exiled from Konohagakure-no-Sato. You are forbidden to enter within one hundred meters of the walls and you must be gone by 3 A.M. this morning, never to return. Speak of this to no one. Clear?"

**AN: Ah a good old fashioned cliffhanger. This is a product of fused plot bunnies and I think this turned out pretty well. Sakura seems OOC to me writing it so please dont rip me a new one because of that but anything else please help. This might end up being pretty epic. Romance, while it will be a large part of this, will take a second seat to the angst and adventure. Thanks for reading and please review and tell me what you think.**


	2. So that's it?

**An: Hello again. This is the next chapter of Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto. I didn't get much readership for the first chapter although that's understandable considering the summary had every indication of a oneshot written by a 12 year old girl and the chapter itself only had some angst and dorky-as-hell NaruSaku. I wouldn't have read that story based on that summary. The point of that had been pretty much to establish where Naruto and Sakura were at that point and then completely turn the entire thing on its ass. Now it gets a lot more interesting. Don't worry; by the time you read this I'll have changed the summary as well. About the story itself, I'm going to pull a complete literary dick-move and change the first person view between Naruto and Sakura for the time being, although not till the next chap. On to the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own shit.**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter 2: So that's it then?

"Namikaze Naruto, on account of your status of a jinchuuriki no longer being dangerous to you outside of the village and the danger to the citizens it poses while you are still here, you are hereby exiled from Konohagakure-no-Sato. You are forbidden to enter within one hundred meters of the walls and you must be gone by 3 A.M. this morning, never to return. Speak of this to no one. Clear?"

Ha. Wow. Akatsuki gone and Orochimaru no longer out there so now they can throw me into the wilderness without completely outwardly damning me? _W-W-...WHAT THE FUCK!?_ I need to control myself. Any outward action at this point would only prove him right. "What of my friends? Don't you think people will start asking questions?" A slight tremble was the only hint of the mind-numbing rage that had began to flow through the deepest recesses of my consciousness.

"That will be taken care of. For all intents and purposes, you died in the middle of the night tonight from side effects of the Kyuubi being in your body. I am Hokage. You will obey." My breath became ragged. It takes two hands to count the number of times that I've saved the entire village, and this militaristic Creon that had never lifted a finger to bring safety directly to anyone in the goddamn village was calling _me_ a threat that could never be even remotely near Konohagakure again. Something popped into my mind, despite the state of it.

"What of my clan's holdings?"

"Well, naturally the holdings of an extinct clan will be given to the Leaf treasury."

"To be used for what?" My voice dripped with thick, viscous contempt.

"Whatever I see fit. Besides, Kumo is quickly becoming a threat again. My Root needs to be prepared." So that was it. Danzou was smothering me in my sleep to take my clan's holdings to fund a nonexistent war. Fan-fucking-tastic. "I re-emphasize you are not to inform anyone of this." _Too late for that ya dumb sack a shit!_ Sakura's going to have a confusing morning.

There I stood; the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I could feel my fingernails extending and the fire extending to every inch of my skin. _Calm down dammit!!! Don't let him see you like this! Just fucking go!_ "Is that all?" My voice was gravelly and not completely my own. A tiny tinge of fear crossed his face from making mortal enemies with such power before he said "Yes. You are dismissed." I jumped through the window that wasn't open. It hurt; I didn't notice. I bounded across the rooftops. A 20 year old man shouldn't cry. _Sakura...Dammit focus!_ I sobbed midflight. Focus on what? All I am, all I have ever been is this village, these people, and this girl.

I gathered up as much as I could fit in a scroll from my house. In a blur of emotion tainted memories I was at the gate. The night watchmen apparently had the night off. Apparently my secret exile was important enough to leave the largest gate of the village open for any nukenin or brigand that was in the mood. The tears started again. "Does this please you?" I said, just loud enough for the Anbu following me to hear. "You allow your Tyrant to expel your heroes in favor of latent aggression to neutral former-allies? You would allow him to take all that I've built up from nothing? To all but exterminate a fellow shinobi with much more honor, skill, and experience than all of you combined!?" I was yelling now. Any louder and I'd wake people. Then they would kill me. I took one last look at the only home I'd ever known. The only village my father had ever known. The place where my mother found sanctuary, solace, and love. Where I had found love. Wiping my righteous tears with my sleeve as an academy student would I turned around and ran.

The world was closing in around me. I felt like I was suffocating, though whether that was from the emotional trauma or the countless hours of top-speed running wasn't clear. I didn't even take the effort to dodge branches anymore, instead breaking them like the spine of a genin with a flick of a wrist.

Everything turned red. Suddenly I was floating on knee-deep murky water. _I know this place._ I looked up even in my distraught state to see the huge cage. The water was murkier, the walls seeming to peel from whatever ethereal foundation to which they were attached. "Go ahead fox. Make my day."

"Just release me."

"Fuck no. We've been through this approximately fifteen times so if you don't have anything more important to say I'm gonna think of a spice girls song to get stuck in here."

"Oh God no. I was just kidding about that anyway. I actually have a proposition for you."

"What."

"Because you're no longer in any position to be taught by anyone, I have to take responsibility in improving your skills." Skepticism dominated my thought. I decided to take a direct approach.

"'The fuck are you talking about?"

"Kukuku... What, did you think that the Rikudo sage didn't tell the Bijuu anything when he created us? You are being given the unique opportunity of being taught secondhand to the Rikudo sage himself. This will also supplement and complement your sage training, like the way you were when you went to face Nagato those years ago."

"Where will I do this training?"

"You'd have to come behind the bars and then we can create a landscape in your own mind. In reality you'll just be meditating for about two years, then there will be a period of a year of actual physical training, the likes of which you have never come close to experiencing."

"Umm...m...I... I need some time." I was still only a few hours after the exile. My mind was still in shock, as evident from the further decay of the industrial archetype of a decrepit space that was his mind.

"Part of the training is using this distress. You had a woman involved too, so you can be just like ol' Rikudo."

"One thing. Then I will begin the training in full." What the hell do I have to lose. One last message and I will go out of commission for three years. I created three clones just in case and sent them on their way.

I was hopping across the rooftops. Luckily I got in while the other two temporarily incapacitated the guard. I carefully broke into my destination carefully, not making a sound. I submitted my message. I had one last look at the angel on the nearby bed. She was on her back with her head facing up. I gave into temptation and brushed the hair off her charmingly wide forehead. I leaned down and kissed it ever so slightly. She moved al little, but if anything, seemed more relaxed. "I'll come back to you. I promise you." *poof*

I was leaning on a tree, the tears having given way to numbness and emptiness. Suddenly I was filled with acquired experience. _Rooftops, house, message...Sakura..._

"Fox. Do it."

"Are you sure kit?

"Yes."

"Your corporeal body will enter an induced hibernation at this point. It will run on my energy, and your conscious, for two years, will be completely moved to this world. Now, when you're ready, step between the bars, and we will begin."

_Goodbye, cruel world..._

**AN: Whew. 2 1/2 hours on a Thursday and there we are. Time skip on its way, as you can imagine. Please review! Thanks for reading! Please check back for updates. I know it took me forever last time, but that was because only about 40 people read it. Thanks!**


	3. ButWha?

**AN: Hello. Here's another chapter a mere couple of days after the other one. Hooray for days off from that cotton plantation people insist upon calling a Jesuit high school. Anyway, I'm going to switch to the first-person view of Sakura for her confusing morning. As for her OOCness in this that I'm most likely going to hear about, Sakura seems to me like the inwardly funny type of person that's been trained to be "normal" all her life from social pressures that frown on the more outgoing young girl, as evidenced by the whole "inner Sakura" thing has stopped doing recently. If you don't agree, then write your own fanfic. Thanks to everyone for reading and especially for reviewing. Seeing a bunch more reviews when I check back is like snortin up a big ol line of Columbian gold. Onward!**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Ch 3 But…Wha…?

*Beep**Beep* _Sigh…_*click* My mind was devoid of thought at this point. I glanced at the clock. 5:30. Why did I always have to wake up so early? _Time to do training makeup and then finish that hospital paperwork I didn't finish last night._ That was why. Just because I was a ninja didn't mean I could show in the presence of my man _looking_ like I'd just gotten about five hours of sleep offset by an hour of paperwork before and after. I could, however, hold off on the shower until before our date.

Ah yes, it had finally worked. For a while there I was really afraid he'd stopped liking me. Now that would've really sucked. I've loved him for a while now, but back when I'd just started to a year or two after he'd defeated Madara he'd ask me out really rarely and I'd be so shocked and unready that I'd say no, give some lame excuse, and chastise myself for being such a dumbass afterwards. But this time, this time I was ready. It was my birthday, and I knew he'd be there with some sort of unorthodox birthday present like sushi or something and then all I'd have to do was lay it on kind of thick and he'd ask me out again. Then I'd be ready. It worked. _Any thicker and I'd have had to whip out my tits and shove his face in 'em._ I chuckled at this thought. Now all I had was a team training session and a shift at the hospital between my date with him.

I got up and went to the bathroom. I might've been seeing things, but I think my mirror is...greasier than normal...? _Maybe I should clean this... nah._ After putting on my face I sat down and filled out case reports. I didn't have breakfast. It would've just spurned my will at this point plus it serves as a motivator to get through all this crap. I scanned through all of them; the ones I proceeded to help and the ones we couldn't. _Heart attack and cardiac arrest in the middle of the night... how awful..._

I ate my breakfast and went to the training grounds. I was surprised to find myself... alone. _Where the hell is Naruto?_ He was always here before me. Hell, a third of the time he'd be on the ground sleeping with dirty clothes from training the whole night through. He must've just slept in. _But he has an alarm clock. A pink one. That I gave him._ I shook off these thoughts and rationalized myself out of that little conundrum. I've become really good at that over the years. Then again, as a ninja, a friend or teacher could be dead without a moment's notice, so lying to yourself can be really helpful.

Then something really weird happened. Kakashi-sensei showed up and Naruto still wasn't here. That was downright impossible. I could read that he was as confused as I was at first as easily as he could read that horrible little book of his. "Where's Naruto?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." He looked skeptical.

"What, aren't you his girlfriend?" How dare he.

"What?! No! I share a hug with my teammate and suddenly you think we're fucking!?" I don't know why I was so embarrassed or why I jumped to the conclusion that we were that far along so quick but still!

He eye-grinned. _Sigh. Here it comes._ "No, but with that little reaction I can't help but think you wish it were so." Oh, he was _so_ going to die.

"Sensei?" I said, laying on horrible sweetness and putting on my gloves, "how would you like to spar with me until Naruto arrives?"

"Umm... we should maybe look over team strategies or look over mission opportunities or work on uhh..."

"No, considering the third member of the team isn't here, the only thing we can really do is spar. I'll give you a three second head start. Go."

"But Sakura--"

"One."

"Ohh shit!" He turned and hauled ass. I waited two more seconds and ran.

* * *

_Where the hell is he?_ We had been sparring for a whole half an hour. I'd assumed Naruto would jump in once he came and we'd start practice for real. Kakashi was getting tired, and I'd gotten my vengeance so boredom gave way to worry. He was _never_ this late. That isn't even an exaggeration. "Okay where the hell is Naruto-kun?" My concern let the suffix slip through.

"I have no idea. He's going to have to pay for this though." He contemplated, then, "this isn't getting us anywhere. Same place same time tomorrow. When you see him tonight ask him what the hell happened. I've got to report to the Hokage. See you."

"Bye Kakashi-sensei." He leaved away, leaving me alone to deal with all this worry and nervousness. _Should I go check on him? I don't want him to think I'm all clingy now that he's only just asked me out. Then again, he didn't come to a team meeting, and he'd want to be notified and reprimanded. But then our date might be ruined! But... Although... Then again..._ My mind was like a scene of a TV show hallway with people running back and forth through the doors looking for each other and something to stop the confusion. They found it. _They could probably use my help at the hospital. I'll just go there, fulfill my midday shift, and see him when our date comes around. There's no way he'd ever miss that._

* * *

I finally stepped out of the hospital. _That must've been the longest day I've ever served._ My mind had been on Naruto all day. More so than normal, even. I went through a cycle of thinking about him, thinking about what I want to do with and to him, worrying about him, hoping to see him end up in the hospital just to get rid of the uncertainty, feeling guilty for hoping to see him injured, then thoughts of his body on a bed led right back to the first part and it all repeated. Going through this all day led me to fuck up a patient's IV. An IV!!! Personal Apprentice to the fifth fucking Hokage and I botched an IV! I walked home, trying to think of something else and failing miserably. I got into my house and placed my bag down. I went straight towards my room and noticed how small it was. _Maybe when Naruto and I get serious we could-- Stop it, crazy!_ I only just got asked out by him yesterday and I was already thinking about moving in and secretly wondering what our babies would look like... wait what? I mean yeah, I love him, but shit, I gotta slow down.

It was still only about two. The worry got to me. I changed into my neutral attire from the ninja medic uniform that I wore at Tsunade-shishou and Jiraiya-sama's (oddly enough) urging. It was white, had a somewhat short skirt and was... kind of tight. Naruto loved it when I treated him in it though and recovered in a snap so I wear it. I set out to go to his house. It might take some of the sheen off of the first moment, but I had to see him. I hopped the rooftops, going much faster than I thought I would. I got to his window. It was completely block up by yellow tape. _Oh God._ I hopped around to the front. There were two Anbu along with and talking to

"Kakashi-sensei?" The most horrible expression came across his face. The graveness of the moment before was still present, but he looked like he was about to get the electric chair a year earlier than he'd been told.

"Sakura." His voice was strained. It was as if he was digging deep within his soul for some shred of will with which to say whatever he was planning. "Apparently the Kyuubi being inside Naruto had side effects we didn't know about."

"Where is he? Why is his place sealed off?! What happened?!?!

Kakashi braced himself. "Naruto died last night after midnight." Kakashi winced, like he was afraid to look at me. At the pain this caused me. My whole world froze.

"Wh-what?" This wasn't my voice. This wasn't the voice of the proud Haruno, apprentice to the greatest medical ninja the world had ever seen and teammate to the youngest legend the world had ever known. This was the voice of a six year old girl that had been bullied all day. _N-no! That can't be! NO!!!_ "Where is he?! I need to see him!!!" Kakashi looked to the Anbu.

The Anbu, taking the cue, said, "the remains of Namikaze Naruto were buried as soon as they were discovered. They were leaking corrosive chakra and were disposed of accordingly." I looked at the Anbu. Oh how I wanted to kill him right then and there.

"He doesn't even get a funeral!?" It was Kakashi. I would've said something had my mind been able to form a thought. I had gotten the news, then the Anbu brought an irrational amount of something like blame upon himself by saying that they, whoever the hell they were, weren't even going to give him a proper funeral.

"There could be villager riots. He is a demon after all." Suddenly everything went blank. I awoke, and Kakashi was in front of me grabbing my arm on a point that was not the fist glowing with chakra, an Anbu was behind me in a choke hold, and another was crouched beside us with a kunai ready. Then I just burst. I was sobbing loud enough for the whole village to hear. There was nothing else left to do. I was released by the Anbu and fell to the ground, tears flowing faster than I thought they ever could. Kakashi picked me up and took me back to my house. He put me on my bed.

"I'm sorry Sakura." He left.

* * *

It was the next day. Ino walked in. "Sakura?" She sounded annoyed. She must still not know. Even she wouldn't be this upbeat for a few weeks. I quietly sobbed, partially to let her know I was in here, partially because I was still broken. She must have not heard that it was a sob. Still talking from the other room, she goes, "where the hell were you today Sakura? I had to cover all your pa--*gasp*" I must've looked like crap. "I didn't think you'd be this bad if your date with Naruto went bad." I sobbed again at the mention of his name. She took this as saying that I would be. "So the date really did go that bad huh." She clearly was not understanding the gravity of the situation.

"If only it had." If someone wanted to know what Ino looked like confused, they should look now. "If only it had went at all." She thought she realized.

"So he showed you up huh?"

"I guess you could say that." That was enough word games. "Naruto died two nights ago." That one got her good. She looked like a fish out of water. She stopped and sat down. She took me in a hug. We sat there for a while and I think she was crying too. "I trust you'll tell everyone."

"I hate to ruin everyone's year but yeah. ... When's the funeral?"

I sobbed again. "There isn't going to be a funeral. On the orders of the Hokage. His body was letting off demon chakra so they buried it the night of plus they're afraid bigots would riot at treating the demon with such a human cer-*sob*-emony.*sobbing*"

"That's... so horrible. " Ino was definitely crying now. _Good. Whoever doesn't cry at this is a horrible person that doesn't know how to appreciate when someone saves their ass._

* * *

_I have to get up. I have to do something._ It had been three days. If I didn't get up and at least eat or something I wouldn't survive. I decided I needed to take a shower. I felt disgusting all over. It might be because I'd laid in a bed for three days straight. _It's because he's dead and I'm not._ I got up and almost stumbled. I hobbled over to my bathroom. I stripped from my underwear that I'd spent most of the time in the bed wearing. I turned on the water and felt the water flow over my breasts and down to the body below. _He never got to touch these._

I stepped out of the shower, looked at the mirror and gasped. There, in a pattern of different formation of the steam on the mirror was sloppily scrawled handwriting. The sloppy handwriting of my dead love. It only read:

I love you

Stay safe

Beware of Danzou

3 Years

**AN: That was a long one! Anyway, thanks a lot for reading! The time skip occurs now. The next chapter will be Sakura's POV too. I try, but I find it kind of difficult to prevent Naruto's or my voice as the author to bleed over into the 1st person perspective of a young woman. Anyway, I took a shot at it. Please Review!!!**


	4. It's Been So Long

**AN: Hi, readers. This is the most recent chapter (in case you couldn't figure that much out), and it will once again follow Sakura. I know some of you will get really tired of following the former little-miss-useless for more than a chapter, but I really want to give a glimpse into what Konoha has become under the controlling, militaristic dictatorship of the dreaded Danzou. Please tell me what you think of it. I'm not gonna lie: the last 1/3 to 1/4 of this is really graphic (as in violent, not smut). Enjoy.**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter Four: It's Been So Long

_Annd...Itss...Done! There we go! A whole stack of discharge forms. All done, now just a study session with Tsunade-shishou and I'm done for the day. _I sighed as I clicked the pen shut and started putting away this darkest side of medicine. I stood up and turned to walk out of my office. One last look at the picture of Naruto on my desk and I was out. _Where are you?_ I shook off these thoughts as I walked down the hallway. I failed. _It's been three years! Why aren't you home yet? Please tell me you're still alive!_ God I'm a mess. Three years after the love of my love is declared dead by the entire village, and just because of some fingerprints on my mirror I can't move on and whenever I even considering looking at a man I always see Naruto and start crying. Can't say how many first dates that's ruined. Not that I really wanted to go on them anyway. Ino and Tsunade-sama really have a knack for setting me up with ugly slobs. _Maybe they think that if I liked Naruto I'd like those pieces of trash._ I chuckled and felt angry and guilty all at the same time.

To make matters worse, suddenly I was at the head of the Konoha Medical Division's office and staring blankly at my sensei with my mind miles away. Tsunade had long ago awaken from her coma and had not been allowed to take the office of Hokage back from Danzou. "Hello-o... Earth to Sakura?"

"Oh!" I caught myself. "Hi, Tsunade-sama."

"Did you bring those documents?" I drew a blank for a second.

"Oh... Oh right." I shuffled through my bag, hoping to not reveal my flustered state further.

Shishou seemed more amused than annoyed. "Where the hell are you today?"

I handed her the papers and began taking out my medical ninjutsu kit to prepare for practice. "I just have a lot on my mind and things are bugging the crap out of me." She seemed surprised by this. I guess I was normally a pretty even woman with everything except men. I thought I could see the gears turning. I could tell this would be one of those days. One of the ones where the people close to me would try to make me forget about Naruto, thus making me remember him more and top it all off with me crying myself to sleep tonight. And I thought today could be a good day. Okay I totally didn't, but still.

"Hmm." A twinkle in her eye. _Here it comes._ "Can't get a certain black haired storefront owner off your mind?" What?

"Wait... What?"

"The guy I set you up with last weekend."

"Oh wait... big guy, doesn't talk much?" About as attractive as a squid left out in the sun for a week?

"Yeah him!!! Can't seem to stop thinking about him?" Sometimes I really hate my sensei.

"He was fat and ugly, he belched randomly and actually had the nerve to ask me to go halfsies!"

"I thought he was charming. Anyway, if that's not it, then what is?" I hesitated. "We need to get this over with so we can do your training, now out with it."

It pained me to even bring it up. "Well... It's been over three years since Naruto disapp--" Oh shit. I covered my mouth to try and stop myself but it was too late. Seriousness passed over Tsunade's face.

"Disappeared...?" Her face was no-bullshit former Hokage now. I flashed her the carefully practiced 'the walls have ears' look we've designated since Danzou had started spying as an everyday thing. She quickly cycled through some hand signs and her confidentiality jutsu was in effect. "Sakura, what the hell are you talking about? Naruto died three years ago. His grave is marked."

"Do you actually believe that crap!?!" I have no idea what propelled this outburst, but it was coming now. I don't know what I expected her to believe. It had all the marks of just a really, really sad incident, besides the whole immediate burial thing, but she didn't have the benefit of a message from the supposedly deceased. "Did it make any sense for the kyuubi's effects to just up and kill Naruto when it had been healing him for twenty years before?"

"Sakura..." I sensed a tremor just under her voice, as if she was condemning herself or others to some sort of horrible fate. "He's dead. We've all done the best to move on. Why can't you?"

"Because what has Konoha become since he's been gone!? With Naruto went hope!!! If there's even the slightest chance he lives, we can't let it go!" I was getting dangerously close to revealing what I'd been hiding for three years.

"Sakura." Again, she seemed to contemplate, although this time, she settled on more of an inquisitive stare and I feared greatly what was to come next. "What do you know that we don't?" I wasn't getting out of this. There was no hesitation in her voice. It was "tell me what happened to my son or get the hell out.

"You're sure this jutsu is solid." She nodded, growing ever more serious and curious. I went right in with it. "There's a reason three years has significance. Three years ago in three weeks, I took a shower to try and get the tears off and he's written a message on my mirror with his finger, so it wouldn't be visible until it was just me." She did a slow gasp, trying to wrack her brain around this concept. "It said he loved me, to stay safe, to keep Danzou in check, and at the end just three years with the last part a little sloppier and done at a slightly later time." Tsunade-sama was flabbergasted. She looked like a squirrel suddenly jumped up, punched her in the face, took some jewelry, and ran off. Then, slowly but rapidly, a tinge of realization flashed across her face.

"Oh my God." Her eyes moved back and forth in quick succession and looked at me a couple of times. It was like she was debating with herself. She seemed to come up with an answer. "Sakura, I think it's time to let you in on a few things." _What the hell? I'm her apprentice; what could she have been hiding?_ "There have recently been... odd events." _Where the hell is this going?_ "The main ones you haven't heard about have been the Anbu... disruptions."

"Disruptions?"

"Well, I don't exactly know what else to call them. There isn't a word for this. Abduction, attack, altercation, aggression... none of them fit!" Tsunade was thinking once again, trying to find a word that described what I'm sure is going to be extremely weird._ And somehow related to Naruto._

"What happened?" There wasn't any spite or any other unwarranted stuff in that. There was only a question to which I wanted to know the answer.

"When Danzou has recently sent out patrols outside the village, they would just... fail somehow."_ What the hell is she talking about?_

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"An entire squad of Anbu would suddenly just go unconscious when they got exactly one hundred meters from the walls without any warning and no visible harm done. None have any recollection of being knocked out; it's like they're there, then they're not there. Suddenly they wake up and it's dark out."

"That's impossible. No one besides maybe the Third in his prime could take out an entire root squad simultaneously without them having any injuries or memory of it." I was being the rational one at this point. Ain't that a rarity...

Tsunade gave me a 'but wait, there's more' look. "That's what I thought. But here's the kicker. In the back pouch of the leader of each squad was found a little stuffed fox doll." _Holy fucking shit!_

A couple of moments went by with me trying to understand this and Tsunade looking guilty and nervous. "And you knew about this and didn't tell me!? You knew how much I longed for Naruto and still do and you didn't tell me about this?!" I blinked and was shocked to find that a couple tears jumped off my face.

"I couldn't. KR's gonna have my ass for letting this much loose as is." Her eyes widened, as if in shock.

"What the _hell_ is KR?"

"Nothing. Go home."

* * *

The walk home was filled with nervousness, paranoia, and good old fashioned confusion. _KR_, I began, careful not to think this most likely forbidden knowledge out loud. _It has to be an acronym. The K must stand for Konoha. What could be this organization that has this much influence on Tsunade-sama?_ I looked around as if for a clue in my everyday surroundings. Much to my surprise, I found one in a propaganda poster that I'd seen often but never really looked at. The prominent message was, "Resistance is criminal. All who support are enemies of the village." above a picture of Danzou looking picturesque and overly dignified._ Of course._

A resistance group in Konoha. It all made sense suddenly. The increased spying, amped up propaganda, random arrests, suspension of habeas corpus, all of it. Danzou was scared, especially with his top cronies passing out randomly in the forest on routine patrols. He probably thinks it's the work of the KR, and just thinking about someone being that powerful could make an enemy shit himself or leave a potential lover moist and wanting. _ Oh God._

* * *

I got home and had a relaxing rest of the day and evening until I went to take out the trash. I was taking the few steps back to my front door and suddenly felt a chakra spike. I felt a quick hit to the back of my neck and was out cold.

I woke up in a dark room, chained to a concrete slab in the middle of it. It was cold. Suddenly I realized I was in my bra and panties. Was I about to be raped?

"Haruno Sakura." An Anbu stepped up to my side and turned my head rather forcefully. "You are accused of knowing information pertaining to the Resistance in Konoha. Even a basis for suspicion or any tie to a person you have a suspicion of being involved with said resistance is worth your life to find. Will you tell us?" The voice was overly dark and gravelly, disproportionate to the slime frame. The hair was well hidden.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I yelled, half-authentically. "What is the meaning of this!? I am a citizen of Konoha! End this immediately!"

"Your rights as of this moment are suspended by executive order of the Hokage. Do you have any information of the Resistance?"

"Fuck no! Let me go!!!"

"You are hiding something. Tell us what it is, or we will be forced to turn to torture."

"You wouldn't dare." My voice was saturated with hate.

He nodded to another Anbu that came over to my bare back, armed with a knife. "Tell us now and end any requirement for this."

"When the public hears of this, Danzou and all of you are going to fry!!!"

"That shouldn't be an issue. Besides, you died approximately two hours ago." At this point, the Anbu put the knife a quarter of an inch into my skin and raggedly carved. I saw red and all thoughts were turned to mush. After a full minute, I was left with the word "DO" carved into my left shoulder blade and blood pouring down the left half of my bare back. I had been screaming.

"TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW!" Rage filled me.

"I don't know anything!" Then the first Anbu nodded to the second again. He inserted the knife a third of an inch deep this time and cleaved the word NOT into my right upper back. I screamed my lungs out and began to convulse. _Just don't turn around and look at it...GAAAAAH!! _I was struggling to retain coherence and not give them anything.

"You can end all of this by just telling us what you know!"

"F-Fuck You!!!" He shook his head and nodded again to the torturer. He put the knife half an inch deep and cut RE.

"Come on!!!" He sounded like he was getting frustrated. An altered scream was my defiance. I suddenly felt the knife again, now three fourths of an inch deep. It cut SI. I could feel it bumpily going through my tissue, leaving gash in its wake and unaccountable pain in its shadow.

"This is your last chance!!! Tell us or you won't be spared!!!" If Naruto didn't give up after all these years of pain, then I couldn't after these couple minutes.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" They were both really frustrated.

"You've made your decision. You won't live to regret it." He was so calm. Suddenly the knife went a full inch deep and divided my back with the letters ST. The knife was so deep I couldn't feel the tip of it anymore. It felt more like my back was a sheet that this man was unbearably slowly tearing through, causing blood to spill out in torrents. My entire body was raking nails down adjacent chalkboards with pain. My knees and elbows were scraped and bloody from thrashing to what extent I could in the chains. My fingernails and toenails were torn off from grinding them against the concrete I was laying on. My entire body below my back was caked with a ridiculous amount of blood.

"ALL OF YOU WILL BURN IN HELL FOR THIS AND I KNOW WHO WILL MAKE YOU!!!!!" I screamed this with the only energy left in me. I passed out and the last thing I saw was a bunch of confused movement and a flash of_... light_ _blond hair?_

**AN: Wow. If I may say so, I think that may be the best chapter I've written so far. I'm officially changing the rating to M to protect the fragile thirteen year olds who actually care whether something's rated M. I admit that last bit was pretty heavy though. I'm going to be keeping Sakura's POV a little bit longer than I'd originally thought, but it'll get to Naruto. Thanks for reading and please, **_**please**_** review. I'd like to know what you guys think of the torture scene as well as the dialog (too dark, awesomely dark, gratuitously violent, etc.) I'll probably have the next chapter out next weekish. Thanks and have a wonderful week.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Hey everybody, it's time for the big landmark chapter 5. I got a huge amount of reception and positive feedback for the last chap after that torture scene and changing the rating to M. I guess fanfic readers really enjoy grotesque torture scenes. Who've thought? Anyway, thanks so much to the upwards of a thousand visitors and over 20 reviewers. When I first posted this and got, like, 50 hits to the first chapter I never imagined getting this much attention so thanks a ton. Onward**

**Pointless disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything else technically. Hooray for minor property laws.**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter 5: The KR

_Naruto... Naruto... Where are you?_

My eyes gradually opened. I heard miscellaneous chatter somewhere far away. The voices were familiar, yet still so distant. I tried to move and the sheet of the bed I was laying on stuck to me and hurt. A lot. Still in a daze, but gradually coming out of it, I tried to take in my surroundings. I was in a gritty, industrial gray plastered room, in a bed exactly like those in the hospital. There was medical equipment, some of which was outdated a year or two. Underneath the sheet I was in my bra and panties. _What the hell?_ Suddenly the confusion of my somewhat exposed state brought me back to first finding myself chained face-down on that concrete block. _They... They tortured me!!!_ I remembered everything and tried to keep myself from hyperventilating at remembering the pain. _No wonder my back hurts._ Only one thing didn't make sense. _Why am I still alive?_

As if in answer, suddenly the same demonic, thoroughly concealed Anbu that had barked out the order for me to be tortured came into the room. I saw red, and he noticed the massive intent I was giving off if his flinch was any indication. Regaining his composure he somehow gained the courage to speak. "Haruno Sakura." The voice was deep, gravelly, and menacing as before. His hand reached to his mask. "Congratulations." The voice was different. _It can't be._ He removed the mask to reveal another mask, though this one I recognized.

"Ka-Ka-Kakashi-sensei...?" His face looked as grim as his voice was before, though this carried an evident tinge of remorse.

"So she's awake?" Tsunade-shishou was at the door. _Wh-What the fuck?!?_ "You scared us for a second there, Sakura. He was scared to death he'd sent you into a coma."

"What the hell is going on?!" I was full on horrified at this point. My sensei had been ordering someone to carve up my back to torture me.

"Sakura, you are now officially part of the Konoha Resistance. You, through our resistance test, have achieved highest qualification for the handling of information, and have indirectly pledged your fidelity by not compromising the association of a member of our highest echelons." Pieces were falling into place. _But then..._

"It was all a test!?" Their faces hardened.

"It was a test to see how trustworthy you are with information and to see if you truly supported the cause. It also serves as a ranking system within the resistance. Those that cracked before RE were healed and then placed back into their beds and made to believe through Genjutsu that it was all a dream. Then whether you cracked before SI, ST or went all the way like you determines their rank. The knife is a special knife, the scarring of which can only be shown through by use of the Chakra of those who made the entire way. You, having made it through completely and with a spirited condemnation of Danzou's misdeeds at the end, have made it all the way to Rank Three. Congratulations." It was all a test. It was as if my sanity was crashing down around me. I felt an odd combination of estrangement, joy at not being dead, and good old fashioned confusion. "In all honesty, you had a fifty-fifty shot of this happening and it being the test of the resistance or the actual work of Danzou's cronies which would leave you six feet under with a flimsy excuse of how if you were lucky."

Tsunade was the next to chime in. "Are you okay, Sakura? We know this is a lot to digest." Suddenly, I found them looking at me, expecting an answer. I squeezed out what sounded like a distinctly not ladylike affirmative grunt. They seemed satisfied.

"Well," Kakashi began cautiously, "what's more important to get to now is any information you may have pertaining to Naruto." I gasped slightly at the utterance of his name. "Has there been any further contact with him since he disappeared?" My eyes began to water up.

"N-no."

Kakashi thought about this for a second. "Despite that fact, I think Naruto has recently been near the village. The information of the Anbu strikes has been crucial, and if I know Naruto, he's trying to signal both us and Danzou by leaving those foxes. He's essentially saying to Danzou that he's still alive, and, if anything, he's more powerful than any of us have ever imagined. Also..." His eye shifted a bit. "There's been a recent development. I think Tsunade could best explain, since she got the secondhand account straight from one of the moles we have in root."

"One day ago, the Hokage's top ranked root squad took over a patrol route to see what the hell was happening. The leader recounted to Danzou that he turned around to suddenly see his entire squad missing. Suddenly both his shoulders were dislocated and his femurs were snapped all simultaneously. This was a top ranked root soldier taken out like he was nothing. Then he said that the Fourth Hokage stood with a foot on him when he landed and said quote, 'Tell that saggy old village-ruining sack of shit his time's almost up.'" _Oh my God..._ "Sakura... Naruto is alive."

This is too much. I'm still caught mid-mind fuck, and now I'm confirmed in my belief of my love still being alive and a ridiculously powerful man at that. They were looking at me for some sort of response. I suppose they expected it to be smart and relevant. "Do you think he still loves me?" I don't know why this was what popped into my mind or why I was asking Kakashi and Tsunade who had less actual contact with Naruto in the past three years than I had. It certainly caught them off-guard. Tsunade's jaw hung open and Kakashi was expressing confusion as much as his eye could allow him, though the eyebrow raise it amounted to most likely carried more of a hint of pitiful disbelief than he'd intended. It still bothered the crap out of me.

Tsunade seemed to recover from the shock somewhat quicker, but Kakashi was still in the dark. Tsunade informed, "I haven't told them yet about the message."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "Start from the beginning." Tsunade looked at me in expectation and Kakashi followed suit.

"Well..." I began nervously, "Three days after he disappeared, I took a shower to get some of the...*ahem* grieving off of me, and when I got out of the shower the condensation arranged to spell out 'I love you, stay safe, beware of Danzou, Three years.'" _That was three years ago in two weeks._

Kakashi processed this. First he turned to Tsunade. "Why did you withhold this information until now?"

"It wouldn't have been right to take her words and spread them without permission, especially since she's held on to it for so long."

He turned to me. "You lived with this unsettling epitaph for quite a while, didn't you?" I nodded dumbly. "Well, there's a lot of planning to do. You're free to rest here for as long as needed. Your back, despite Tsunade's spirited efforts, isn't completely healed. There are some clothes right there." He pointed to some civilian clothes on a nightstand. "We'll be in the conference room down the hall once you feel ready. See you soon." He turned and walked out, leaving me alone to my thoughts. The aftershock of my embarrassing question in the middle of a war-politics conversation suddenly hit. Then again, I had a decent excuse. I'd had my back carved up by the order of my sensei to test my loyalty to an organization I didn't yet know existed. Now suddenly my long withheld belief in my love's life was spontaneously confirmed to the fullest extent short of randomly taking me away in the night. I drifted to sleep, thinking of the possibility of seeing my love's shining face and hearing him call my name to walk me home again like back when things were still good and everyone still had hope. Only was I interrupted by one thought. _A lot of planning for what?_

* * *

I awoke and got up. I had only been dozing, so I doubt a whole lot of time had passed since my enlightening discussion with my sensei. I slipped into the shorts and shirt provided and stumbled out the door to find my way through the halls. The entire place was as dingy and unclean as the room I was in before. It wasn't unhealthy or displeasing to anything but the eye and possibly foot, but the look of it said the entire place had been off the record for quite a while. _Three years?_ I heard indistinct yet firm talking from a room a little further down. The place wherever I was wasn't huge, but it wasn't small by any means of the imagination either.

I turned a corner to see Shikamaru standing next to his father in front of a table where many others I knew sat as well. Shikaku, Shikamaru's father, was talking, leaving Shikamaru to notice me walk in and that smart smile to come over his face. Shikaku finished, and Shikamaru spoke. "Our newest member has arrived." Suddenly, what I could only assume was the entire KR looked back at me and for a split second I felt like I was back at the academy and had come to school forgetting to wear a shirt or something. This feeling vanished when they all started applauding and I saw the supportive, smiling faces of my friends and family congratulating me on entering the right side in what was destined to be messy in the long run. Much to my surprise, I saw Ino sitting closest to me who then beckoned me to sit down in the empty seat next to her. I obeyed and Shikaku gradually continued talking about Danzou's recent action. "What rank did you get?" Ino sounded like a giddy schoolgirl.

"What?"

"Your rank, Forehead. You know... how far they got with the slicing and the pain and the sanity loss. The whole deal." My surprisingly cheery friend's frank description jogged my memory. I suddenly swelled as much as I could at that moment with... _pride?_

"I got all the way to rank three." Her eyes widened. Was this rare?

"Jesus Christ Sakura, you let them cut that whole damn sentence in you? I cracked after SI..."

I didn't know what to say. I'd suddenly been put in an organization in the highest rank possible without knowing what the hell was going on. _Wait..._ "How'd you end up in this, Ino?"

"Well..." She was uneasy suddenly, as if this was something about which she hadn't decided how she felt as of yet. "My dad slipped something in conversation about KR and then less than a day later I woke up in my bra and panties chained face-down to a concrete slab." _...Wow.. I hope they wash that thing... _"Then they did the whole torture bit and after they got to SI I gave in and though I passed out right after, they took that as an endpoint." So this came from Ino's dad. Who started this?

"Who began the KR?" Her eyebrow raised.

"Why?"

"I don't know." I truly didn't. "Isn't that a normal question to ask of an organization you just entered into the top rank of?" She shrugged. She looked to the side, over to Shikamaru, who'd began talking.

"Based on a very recently acquired piece of information, the scheduled raids will be postponed." I got the sense that the ass of every alpha male ninja in that place simultaneously puckered up. And there were a lot.

"What could possibly be so important as to put off the first major action of the resistance?" It was Yamato-sempai. He sounded pissed, but in that know-your-rank-soldier-yes-sir type of way.

Shikamaru hesitated. He looked first to Tsunade, who nodded. Then he glanced at Kakashi-sensei, still in his Anbu disguise, who nodded likewise. Then he looked at me and I resisted the impulse to look behind me to try and find the person he was trying to gain the approval of. Who the hell else could this have related to? I nodded. "Based on a trustworthy source," I caught his eye once again, "Namikaze Naruto will make some sort of move in just under two weeks." A cacophony of whats and hows and other basic expressions of confusion and disillusionment.

"Says who?" Neji spoke up this time. He spoke unusually frank. _That means high-ups in noble clans have immediate ties to the resistance._ Suddenly the few that knew were looking at me again.

Ino turned to me and whispered, "I wonder where the hell they got that from." I stood up, and most of the argument stopped. Everyone was watching the newbie now.

"This is based on two things. First is a report from the root squad that was attacked. The leader recounted that immediately after being fully neutralized by someone, the Fourth Hokage threatened Danzou directly. That could only be Naruto. The actual year figure comes from a message he left on my mirror three years ago in two weeks, saying three years." I looked around. I noted several faces. The place was much larger than I'd originally imagined. The Konoha 10 were there, along with most elite jounin I recognized as well as plenty of indistinct chunin cannon-fodder. Among them was Konohamaru. _The Third's regime and all those loyal to it now have direct ties to the Resistance._ This could actually compete with about a third of Danzou's root army. _Add Naruto and it's a fair fight._

Kakashi had remained mostly silent throughout this exchange, but closed his eye in that 'I'm going to say something important' manner of his. Opening it, he shared what he'd thought of. "Why would we postpone our raids until after the day when we'd be most likely to succeed in them?" People seemed to ponder it.

"Talk straight damn it!!" With a bewildered-looking Hinata still in his arms, Kiba had been the one to let loose this consensus. Kakashi's eye held that occasionally shown humiliation that normally used to happen when Naruto beat him in one of his own games. Kiba had recently been the one to keep Kakashi from getting too high-and-mighty or mysterious when we were supposed to be learning something. I hated it. How dare he try and take Naruto's thing?

Kakashi sighed and continued. "What side do you think Naruto would take if he came to the leaf and saw his friends attacking the cronies of the dictator that exiled him?" _He would join in and an all out coup would start in motion._ "I'm surprised you didn't think of that, Shikamaru."

"Well, I did, but first I wanted to gauge the reaction to the news that Sakura had to give us and the proposal to postpone the raids on account of it."

"Either way, what's out top strategist's decision?"

Shikamaru closed his eyes and his hands made a circle. Five seconds passed. "The raids shall commence with the previously planned arrangements. Any aid from Namikaze Naruto, while it would be extremely helpful, is not to be relied on for the completion of this mission. The objectives of this mission are as follows. Root Training Facility: Primarily, steal the subject matter scrolls. Secondarily, take out some of the emotion re-educators and generally raise hell. Konohagakure Archives: Primarily, steal the main and secret scrolls for the assigned clans. Secondarily, all documents are to remain pristine, no scrolls are to be read in the field, and anonymity is crucial. Streets of Konoha: Primarily, change public opinion in favor of the resistance through the vandalizing of preexisting propaganda. Secondarily, spread the word carefully. Hokage Tower: Primarily, show the Hokage he has something to be afraid of. Secondarily, rally for the cause of the resistance and take out as many root as possible, though prevention of loss of life takes precedence. Complete anonymity is to be maintained on each of these missions. Civilian loss of life is inexcusable and extremely detrimental to the cause of the resistance. Careful consideration has been given to where you will all be assigned, and if the guy's been coming around as I told him to, you should all have an envelope in front of you concerning your assignment, particularly who will be in your squad and their abilities lest you not be familiar with them. An hour has been provided for you to familiarize yourself with your squad and your assignment, after which the miniature explosive tag on each of them will activate, causing them to become no more. You will be expected to remember these details for the remaining time. This will be the last meeting until three days after the scheduled raids. Should your operation be compromised, the resistance does not exist, never has existed and would never possibly exist. You are dismissed. Good luck."

* * *

Hokage Tower. The epicenter of death and destruction this raid is destined to bring. April 19 is now approaching fast. That is the day when, for the first time in a long time, I will take a stand for something dear to me. It will be the day when a tyrant will see what happens when those in the right have been biding their time for far too long and are tired of it. It will be the day when those that one tosses to the side many moons ago and assumes is no more will come back to turn his best laid plans into nothing more than the whimsical ravings of a power-hungry misanthrope that they are. It will be the day of retribution for past sins and for the reconciliation for things too long unsaid. I wonder what the citizens will think when they see masked delinquents running through the streets, vandalizing things that are much more preposterous than what they are replaced with, completely unaware of the much graver works happening off in the distance in Danzou's den. This will come, and we will see who comes out on top. We will see who is victorious.

**AN: Whew. Idk why that was so hard to write. I guess writer's block had to appear sometime, didn't it? I meant to stretch it out a bit more but this took me a full four nights with balancing schoolwork to write. I reached the point where I know what I want to happen, but I don't know how to play it out to get all the stuff I want to out. Anyway, I'm proud of that little bit at the end; it seems pretty apocalyptic but, hell, she's thinking about something that will set in motion a huge change in the ninja world. By the way, April 19 is the date of the Battle of Lexington and Concord (thank you Wikipedia), so I drew a little parallel there. I'm sorry I took so long and might not have delivered on the darkness and violence people might have come to expect from this story but, all this stuff needed to come out eventually, and now I can make the next chapter pretty awesome. I got a mind-boggling reception for the last chapter and I'm so grateful for so many readers and reviews. I hope to get this next chapter quicker considering I have the next couple days off, but I'm not going to hold me strictly to that. Please Review!! Have a great week.**


	6. A Hero Returned, A Sage Reawakened

**AN: Chapter 6. Whew. Last chap was long and boring and I didn't get a huge response but I guess that's sort of what to expect with such a filler. Anyway, I'm going to try and do this now but it's coming pretty slow so by the time you're reading this it's probably been quite a while since I started. As far as the plot and consistency with the manga goes, at the time I'm writing this 472 is out. I'm changing it so Sakura didn't confess to Naruto and they didn't do the whole we have to kill Sasuke thing. I'm just going to glaze over the whole 4th ninja war thing considering it ain't that critical to my plot. The next couple chs are going to go very slowly as far as actual time flow is concerned, but I'm going to keep going with the whole changing-POVs thing, so that should be good. Anyway, here is back to the Point of View of our hero, Namikaze Naruto!!! *cheers, fangirlswoons, etc* Enjoy**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter 6: A Hero Returned, A Sage Reawakened

My eyes snapped open. The trap I rigged now in full swing, I stopped the incoming kunai with a thought. Staying in my meditation lotus position, I sprang up to avoid the bear trap that sprang a third of a second later. Two kunai were approaching in a straight line from each other with my temples where they were destined to meet. I took both index fingertips and knocked them upwards, redirecting 85.6% of their kinetic energy upward at a 110 degree angle. Their tips met three meters above me and spun afterwards. I grabbed and threw them half a second after each other, admittedly with more power for the second. The first hit the dot on the tree and the second imbedded itself in the bottom of the first, causing them to stick out from the tree parallel to the ground. I have to get some better kunai sometime. I don't even need to use any wind chakra to pull off that little trick anymore.

I glanced up at the sky. 5:56:30 PM. It would be time to set out soon. Time to go home. Not permanently of course, but for a time. A time, and this is an amusing thought, that, one way or another, would end up in the Konoha history books. It would either be the day that marked the beginning of the end of a tyrant's Kage-ship or the day when our noble and fearless leader smote a bunch of godless, cowardly, anarchic hippies for questioning his wisdom.

Home. It's both painful and full of warmth to think of it like that. I remember all those great times, back when Tsunade was still Hokage. Back during the chunin exams. Back when we were genin. My whole life's been a mountain range of constant plateaus. It starts as a pile of shit until enough people recognized my existence to give me some sort of life. Then Sasuke leaves. Suddenly I have a gaping hole of friendship as well as the only girl I've ever looked at being broken. I hated seeing her like that. That's why I made that promise. I'd bring him back no matter what, I said. The promise of a lifetime. I keep my word. I did keep my word. I wish I could say I had brought Sasuke back, but anyone that knew him past exchanging hello and hn knew that that insane, Konoha cursing criminal was no more Sasuke than I am. The sorry bastard just went in between screaming about Konoha being responsible for the Uchiha slaughter and sitting there, as lifeless as the cell bars he was imprisoned behind. It was a full year after the war had ended and I had captured him when he was retreating from Konoha after a failed attack attempt.

That cell wouldn't have held him for much longer, but he didn't even have to go through that much. He had been taken out for rehabilitation. He escaped of course. I was ready to go after him again. I took it as a given. I was trudging to the gates when Sakura caught me. I almost made the same mistake twice. There we were; she was bawling, which I found kind of odd considering she just looked vaguely sad and apprehensive about something else, somewhat farther away, when she first learned about Sasuke getting away. I grinned as always and said "Don't worry Sakura-chan! I'll br--"

She screamed randomly. "No! Please don't! Don't leave me too!" She then grabbed me and sobbed straight into my shoulder. I hadn't thought it was possible for so many tears to come out of someone's eyes, and I hated that those eyes were Sakura-chan's.

Now I'm going to see her again. For the first time in three long years, I'm going to see her again. _What if she doesn't want to see me again? What if I freaked her out when I said I loved her in the mirror?_ I have no idea how she reacted when she originally learned that I was dead and then that I wasn't.

_**Don't get to worrying about that quite yet kit. You've got a lot of work to do, and I remind you that you'll have to run out again after the attack. There's a chance you won't get to see her at all.**_ _I know that much, but if I see her in trouble you know what I'll have to do. __**You're lucky I trained you so well. **__Blow it out your nine-tailed ass. __**What'd I say about respect for sensei?**__ Mrgfuggr *grumble*_.

He did sort of have a point. I sat down and began to meditate once again. Thanks to him, I am now invincible. I am the alpha, the omega, the enigma. I've counted three times when I've tried to go faster but was blocked by an invisible wall that was right in front of me, gathering up. Only one time did I break through it, only to be wildly stunned by a ridiculous thunder when I stopped. I've found myself amused by how hilariously weak and fragile Danzou's almighty, fear-striking root squads were. The first couple times I sort of cheated, yeah, but even when I stooped to taking them out one by one they stumbled around as if someone had rudely shut off the lights and was picking them off with shuriken.

This had all been the product of my training. The first two years had been a constant push and pull to and from the edge of a cliff. I don't know what the hell the Rikudo Sage had went through, but if his jutsu, fighting style, and the division of his tenant were like this, he must've been bat-shit crazy. I had spent the equivalent of ten years in my own mind. Somehow the fox worked it so I could work that in two years. When I said I was worried about mental aging, he said my maturity wouldn't increase, much to his own disdain. I was sure as hell tired of my own dank, dirty mind and even that ethereal wasteland in which I did most of my actual training. Then at the end of those ten long years, I awoke. My eyes felt crusty. I made an effort to stand, and on my way, every bone in my body seemed to pop into place. I was six inches taller and ripped as I was when I started. I tried to walk and fell on my face after a total of five steps. I worked up to walking, then running, then running extremely fast with 500 pounds of extra weights.

_Well look at that. Speaking of Danzou's Anbu squads..._ I felt the hint of a pretty top-notch root squad about 235 meters to the Southeast. Time to start thinning out the ranks before tonight's raid. I used a basic cloak Genjutsu (_yes I learned Genjutsu_) and began the waiting game. ... _God they're slow._ They were right below me. I transported down to right in front or their leader, clothes lining him. I also let loose a huge wave over killer intent all at once, and it worked; I saw half of them pass out for a second and stumble over tree branches until they fell. The rest were scared shitless because of the killer intent and the fact that their leader was just taken out like an academy student. I disposed of them with a couple of quick punches and kicks. Now they were on the ground and most were not moving. "Okay shitheads. Your whole shtick is that you don't have emotions, right?" They didn't respond, and I took that as a yes. "Do you feel fear?" There was no response. "DO YA?" With that I released another wave of killer intent, this time twice as large as the first. I heard a couple released bowels. That never gets old. "Alright fucknuts, shit's going to go down tonight, and if you go back to Konoha, you're going to have a 50/50 shot of dying. If you swear allegiance to the Konoha Resistance and to me as your leader, I will knock you out right now and you can wander back tomorrow morning and say you never experienced any of this. If you choose to run away, I will personally find you and kill you. What's it going to be?"

I heard silence. "You all have thirty seconds. Keep in mind, you're going to have to make this decision now or when we actually take over in the near future and I'm giving you the opportunity to spare a risk and getting away scot-free. Twenty-five seconds."

"unh...Manipulative demon..." Oh... That was poor judgment on his part. _You with me fox? __**Right behind you**_.

I walked over to the sorry bastard and grabbed him by the hair. I pulled him up to eye level and saw his fear. "You want a demon. You got one." The Kyuubi then let loose a beam of malicious chakra straight into his eyes, which soon rolled into the back of his head as he began to foam at the mouth. He'll be fine. In about a week or so. "Anyone want to try what he did?"

Chimes of "I'll take the deal; please don't kill me." rang through the forest floor. I agreed and knocked all of them out.

* * *

The border. I haven't been here in so long. I'm already in direct violation of the executive order pertaining to my exile, but I've got bigger fish to fry. I threw 3 shuriken directly at the forehead of the guard and a kunai at four points around them. He saw those, but he didn't see my shin flying at the back of his neck. I made past him, masked my chakra and went through the village in an old fashioned henge. Hide in plain sight and they don't seem to have any idea where to look. I sped across the rooftops at a rate that probably made the issue of anyone seeing me completely moot.

I got to my destination and felt out for any potential hostiles. There were two Anbu hiding outside, and they were advancing very fast. I took them out quietly. I heard the water going. She must have been doing dishes. The compound was much smaller than I remembered. One would think the oldest building in Konoha was a little more... lavish. I was in the kitchen soon, and she still hadn't noticed. I suppose old age would get to even a former Kage eventually. I undid the henge with a poof. That got her attention.

She whipped around with the plate in her hand ready to be a projectile, but instead she dropped it along with her jaw when she saw me. It would've made a horrible noise, so I transported over to right in front of her. I heard her gasp at this little display. "N-N-Naruto-kun!"

"It's good to see you Baa-chan." Tsunade looked like she was watching a ghost; I suppose, in a couple of senses, she was. She immediately brought me into a huge hug, bone crushing even without the extra strength. She still used a henge, and I resisted the temptation to steal a look down her shirt. I have more self control now. Sort of.

Pulling back and planting a kiss on my cheek she goes, "Where the hell have you been!?!" I suppose I should've suspected that much. "They told us you were dead!"

"I've been training, Baa-chan."

"Under who?"

I smiled. "Apparently the Kyuubi received some training from the Rikudo Sage. He passed it on to me." Her eyes widened.

"Bu-but how? How could he pass everything on to you in three short years?" I told her about the whole mind-ten years thing, and she settled on the vacant look of someone who'd just and their mind blown. "So what can you do?"

"Shit you wouldn't believe."

"Try me."

"Well... You know how some ninjas have boasted that they can do shit like take out and entire castle or nation or army all by themselves?"

"Yeah."

"Well... yeah." _I wonder how long this is going to take._

"Yeah?"

"Yup."

"No."

"oh yeah."

"Really?"

"Mm-hm."

"Holy shit." She seemed to be accepting it gradually. This conversation was going nowhere fast.

"I need the details about those raids tonight." Her face turned from surprise to striking gravity with precise skill.

"There will be four raids. The one you should go to should probably be at Hokage tower. Primary objective is to scare Danzou and put root on notice. Second is to take out as many root as possible. I wouldn't, I repeat would NOT advise killing him just yet. That would look too much like an assassination by an unknown group. A huge part of the other raids as well as this one is to gain public support for the KR. The tags go off at 9:56. How did you know there were going to be raids?"

"Anbu is more afraid of you than you might think. They don't know any specifics though. One last thing. Where is Sakura in all of this?"

That seemed to catch her off guard. It shouldn't've, should it? "Well Naruto..." She seemed really afraid of me all of a sudden, which only made me more nervous considering she knows by now that I would never hurt her. "I let loose something about the resistance, so we had to bring her in, which of course called for... initiation..."

"What happened?" I was no nonsense now, though I tried to hold back as much aggression in my voice as I could.

"Our initiation situation is somewhat... gruesome, but it's only half of what Danzou would do if he found someone with resistance connections..." She was being vague about something that happened to Sakura. This did not bode well. Her eyes dropped down. "I can at least assure you that it was no worse than this." She turned around and I activated my toad sage abilities. I saw horrible scars, in the scraggly words Do Not Resist on her back.

"You're going to tell me who did that to you, why you did that to Sakura, where she is right now and where she's going to be during the raids tonight in the next five minutes or I'm going to go find her myself."

She sighed. I guess that attempt to make her panic wasn't successful. That means I still have to treat all of this as unconfirmed, because while I'm positive Tsunade wouldn't lie to me without good reason, the probability that they've somehow hooked a surveillance jutsu under my privacy ones isn't small enough to be negligible. Looks like I'm going to have to go ask Kakashi-sensei too. "Right now she's at her house probably preparing for the raids. She'll be at the Hokage tower tonight. As for this, Danzou did." _Fucker's just sealed his fate._ "He wanted me to dismiss any thought in my mind about restarting my regime. So he did this with a poorly done sealing jutsu covering it up to all ninja except adept sealers. Or the pupils of master sealers."

"Kakashi-sensei."

"Exactly. After a privacy ninjutsu covered discussion not unlike this one, we decided we couldn't stand around anymore. But we came to the dilemma of secrecy, and that if Danzou was so willing to torture someone as in a position as high up and benevolent as the head of all medicine in Konoha, a chunin with critical information, even as much as who else was involved in the resistance, would be a sitting duck. So Kakashi came up with the 'DO NOT RESIST' test." Oh shit. Whatever this is, they did it to Sakura. "If someone learned anything about the resistance, they are abducted by us and tortured by gradually cutting that into their back. Based on where they crack, they're given a rank. It was pretty terrible for the first six months or so, but after a while the torture has only proved to strengthen the camaraderie of the resistance." I was trying to withhold my anger. These hypocrites! Don't they see that they're lowering themselves to Danzou's deranged level. "Trust me Naruto, there was no other way. Things much worse have been done for much less in the ninja world. Kakashi struggled with that for a month or so and came to the same conclusion, and Shikamaru actually concurred when he was brought in."

"But..." I found myself again speaking through gritted teeth. "But you _hurt_ Sakura-chan! And do you guys think you're any better than Danzou by torturing people to assure their loyalty!?" She was looking down again, but now it was the way she would look down from the Hokage tower back during the war when she gave a team a mission neither was sure they'd return from and was watching them go through the gates, regretting having to make the choice more than the choice she actually made.

"I didn't mean to involve Sakura in all this." Her face suddenly had a tinge more shame and genuine sorrow than a split second ago. "The name KR slipped out when I said they were going to have my ass if I told her any more about certain events." There was a pause that seemed to last eons. "She had told me about the message you left her. I told her about the Anbu disappearances. She was horrified that I'd kept information pertaining to you from her for so long. She knew that I knew how much she worried about you and wished you were home and she was disgusted with me. When I dropped the name, she asked what it was, and I told her it was nothing and to go home. She was initiated that night. That was two weeks ago." ... I had to process all this. It was partially my fault. I'd thought these Anbu disruptions to be a great way of making Danzou shit himself; instead it got Sakura involved in all this and hurt. _"...how much she worried about you and wished you were home..." Oh man..._ Then again, why the fuck was the KR doing shit as bad as what Danzou would do!?!

"Why the fuck is the KR doing shit as bad as Danzou would do?!?!"

"We only do the whole torture thing with people who we're pretty sure would be loyal to the resistance and who Danzou would suspect to have direct ties. Basically people might have to deal with much, MUCH worse if Danzou had his way. I know it's horrible, gruesome, wrong, but it was the only way of ensuring loyalty and secrecy until the time is right! Now is that time! Starting tonight the Resistance will start coming forward to attempt to gain public support and start taking the steps towards a revolution with as little loss of innocent life as possible." She sounded authentic. But... But... She still hurt Sakura!

"When all this is over," I turned halfway to walk away. "I'll have to have a long talk with all of you about what the hell you were thinking when you decided to hurt your own. Stay safe tonight."

She seemed to sadly consider this. Then she said something I wasn't previously allowing myself to consider her saying. "When all this is over... we'll need a leader."

"This village will need a lot of things, and I guess someone has to provide them."

* * *

I was riding the rooftops once again, on my way to where I was pretty sure Kakashi-sensei would be. Where he always was before he did something that he might not survive.

I came up to the monument he was standing next to still in my henge. "A lot of great ninja's names are engraved here."

As I expected he would, he didn't awknowledge me in the least until he spoke. "My best friend and rival didn't make it out of that war. Luckily your father came out of it and lived long enough to have you."

"It's good to see you too sensei."

"You gave us all quite the scare those years ago. I remember having to tell Sakura what I'd thought happened when I checked your house after you didn't show up for training that morning. What actually happened?"

"Danzou exiled me. I trained in my head for the equivalent of ten years and outside for one. I know stuff that would turn anyones brain into shit. I plan to help out tonight. What's the whole deal with the torture in the KR?"

"Did you talk to Tsunade?"

"Yeah."

"She didn't lie to you."

"But what the fuck with the torturing!?"

He sighed. Did he really think I would've given up with the 'What she said' story? "It's horrible, I know, but otherwise there would've been way too high a risk of trusting people with information that could lead to the death of many others. I thought this out for a long time, Naruto."

"But why Sakura?!"

"We did it to everyone else. If we were going to bring her in why would we spare her?" Then something occured to me.

"Why was Sakura entered into the Resistance so recently?"

"Well," I could tell he was ready for that one. "She hadn't told us about your little note, and the initiation effects everyone differently. For the bulk of the past three years, Tsunade was afraid that if anything more traumatizing happened to Sakura, she'd lose it. For three whole days after I told her what I thought happened, no one saw her. We learned from Ino that she'd been in bed grieving for all that time. Then for a year or so she just looked bewildered, like she wanted to believe in something but was afraid of getting her hopes up and was always torn about it, and she just sort of sauntered about things. Tsunade was afraid she really had lost it for a while there. Everyone was. She needs you man, I'm sure of that." Goddamn. If I'd known how much that would fuck her up... I don't know what the hell I would've done.

"Well, now that my brains are scrambled, where are you going to be during the raids?"

"I'm going to be at the archives?"

"Why?" I realized how much of a dick that made me sound like. "That came out wrong."

He shot me a peeved look and then said, "Well, besides you I suppose, I know the most about seals, and a large part of the archives raid is taking the scrolls of the high up clans with ties to the resistance. You wouldn't happen to want to trade places would you?"

I chuckled. "Hell no. I'm at the Hokage Tower tonight. By the way, if they haven't burned it yet, could you grab the Namikaze scroll and hold onto it for me?"

"Already planned to, but I'll be sure to now. Do you have a means to conceal your identity? We could get you a mask."

"That won't be necessary."

"So you already have one."

"No, it's just that by the time one of them sees my face, they'll be dead already."

He closed his eye, shook his head slowly and muttered about me being a cocky bastard. "Did you plan to show your face to your sensei that you haven't seen in so long?"

"Hate to disappoint you sensei, but the last thing I need is someone happening to see me and running through the streets shouting I returned. Besides, you all will get your dramatic unveiling soon enough."

"We'll be waiting with bated breath, I assure you." I could deal with the sarcasm and dickishness. It was his way of saying he was happy to see me. I had one last thing I needed to ask him. Granted it was a pretty wide open question, but still.

"What's changed about Konoha?" He saw this one coming to and closed his eye to think.

He opened his eye. "Over the past three years, Danzou has tightened his grip on Konoha in tiny increments. He began to further arm his root troops pretty soon after he made you leave and began randomly imprisoning people that had any possible connection to Kumo. Any actual conflict with Kumo has yet to occur, and Danzou's random suspicion brain center has recently become much more occupied with rumors of the resistance. The propaganda for root and Danzou and against anything else began about six months after we formed the KR. Then, six months ago, the collective populace lost any semblance of rights. There is an eleven PM curfew every night, people can be arrested for anything or nothing, there are immense taxes on the citizens, there are anbu patrols everywhere, and the civilian base of konoha has assumed a feel of vague fear and desperation. So yeah... shit's pretty bad right now." He could say that again. I could understand Sakura losing it even if it weren't for the whole 'losing me' thing.

"I've got some work to do. Good luck tonight." I turned to walk away.

"You're going to become Hokage after this, right?"

"You know, Tsunade was more subtle about it."

"You know I've never been one for subtlety. Safety and Peace."

* * *

_9:54..._ It was just a little longer now. I went over my slightly altered plan in my head. This was going to be a long night. Tonight is when everything will either begin or end. Tonight is when I will come back and show these people that hope still exists, and that there are good, powerful ninja that are willing to stand up for those who can't. I will show them that there is a leader ready and waiting to take them to the next threshold of freedom and justice. _9:55..._ Not much time left. I'm going to see Sakura again. Wait for me; I'm coming soon. *BOOM*

**AN: CLIFFHANGER NO JUTSU!!! Sorry to leave you like that, but with all that dialog and explanation the chap is already over 4,500 words long, which is about twice the length of my normal chapter, so, you know. Anyway, as one might guess, the next chapter is when the shit really hits the fan so stay tuned everyone! Please review! Pleeeeeaaaaase!!!**


	7. Revolution

**AN: Big chapter seven. This will have much more actual action than the previous chapters. I really ended the last chapter in a rush, but I had been working on my netbook with WordPad which doesn't have a word counter or page divisions. When I brought in up in Word on my desktop, I was shocked to find it was already over eight pages up. I was three fourths through the ninth when I finally stopped. Anyway, I'm already starting this chapter the night after I originally posted chapter six. I got a great reception for that chap because I've got five reviews and it's only been a day. That's the most I've gotten for one posting since chapter four. Please Read and Review!**

**Pointless Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and such.**

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter Seven: Revolution

*BOOM* Three explosions surrounded me in a square encompassing most of Konoha. I was facing two of them and felt the heat of the other on my back. I was high in the rooftops, balancing on an antenna and gathering sage chakra. I felt the natural energy of the world flow into my being. I saw everything. The thought crossed my mind to gather my kyuubi chakra right there as well, but I quickly dismissed it as unnecessary. Besides, I want to save that presentation for Danzou.

The KR chunin squad was running through the streets below me, generally raising hell. _Heh... looks like I'm going to have one reunion already._ I was progressing with them as they went around raising hell. I couldn't help but be proud at their displays of expertise and precision of graffiti and quickly explaining to civilians why they should choose to support the Resistance. _Uh oh..._Suddenly they were face to face with a root squad. They settled into formation. "You are hereby under arrest for defacing property of the Hokage. You will come with us peacefully or perish."

"We haven't done anything wrong!! You have no just reason to arrest us!" Ha. He had him there.

"You have made your choice. Tora, kill these children."

"Yes s-brhgf!" The squad leader paused, waiting for his subordinate to carry out his simple command. He looked over to see no sign of his soldier.

"What the hell!? Whatever; Nezumi, take care of them." He looked over to his other side to again see no one. "Wh-How are you doing this?!?" His supposed assailants looked as confused as he was. I suppose all they saw was a shadow swooping over and taking out the Anbu ordered to kill them like a magician waving a blanket over something and going tada. _Time for a dynamic entry!_ I started ten meters behind him, and jumped at him going painstakingly slow so I actually used gravity. I did a front flip midair as I was right above him and my heel swept up and lodged his nose bone into the front of his brain. He flew back about ten meters and skidded to a halt on the pavement. I was left standing facing three still very scared chunin.

I grinned. "Hey guys. How you been?"

"B-B-B-Boss!?!?!?!?!" Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon all looked irreparably shocked. _Is this how everyone's going to react?_ "You're alive!"

"Yup. Everything you heard was bullshit. Danzou exiled me and made all that crap up about me dying. I'd love to stay and chat, but I'd best be moving along. It's good to see that you've aligned with the right side." He smiled in that 'I'm going to prove something' way of his. "Keep doing what you were doing and stay safe. I'll talk to you guys eventually." Before something more could be said, I transported to another similar confrontation. This repeated a couple of times minus the friendly banter. I heard an exasperated shout to retreat to the Hokage tower. I'll have to hurry up so I can eventually help out there, but I have other things to do first.

* * *

I came upon the ghoulish root training facility, the feeling received from which is only comparable to the earthly sensation of the fall of the reveler on opium. It was huge for one thing, but it was gray and plain and had the feel of a mental hospital. Right now in the courtyard there was a fully fledged battle of about thirty chunin and jounin Resisters fighting around forty root Anbu, though I'm not sure if they were fully trained root or students, based on the hesitation of some of them. There was basic combat jutsu and kunai fighting, but not too much beyond that. I did, however, notice that one particular shinobi was using a very advanced fighting style and taking them out left and right adjacent to twin mini-cyclones flying around taking out airborne root. Despite their efforts, the battle was not going very well.

The building itself was making me unhappy just looking at it, so I decided to take a somewhat more direct approach. I first jumped through the back wall of the building and took out any Anbu I needed to on the way to the scrolls. I retrieved said scrolls from among the dead bodies and again made my way to the top of the building. I whipped the scrolls toward behind the crowd of resisters. _Kuchiyose-no-Jutsu!_ "Hey Gamatatsu. Could you do me a favor and fill up this building with as much oil as possible? You'll get all the treats you want." He agreed and performed the jutsu. Every floor and hall was saturated with oil. "You might want to get out of here now." He poofed away. I'd pay him later.

I ran towards the edge doing a turning flip on the way so I could spring off the edge facing the building. I had been doing katas at a leisurely pace all this time and ended on Tora. _Katon!_ I launched a small fireball and saw the entire place light up. I turned my head and saw a bunch of shocked masks. I also saw five root Anbu jumping straight toward me mid-fall. I sped through katas at about eight per second, summoned some sage chakra and began my transportation ninjutsu. *tsyu**slice**tsyu**thunk**tsyu**crack**tsyu**stab**tsyu**splorch*. _Aww... Now I'm all bloody.__** You know you love it.**__ Whatever._

I landed right in between the crowds of Resisters and root facing the resisters with my head down dripping blood. A root student, probably, came running at my back with a kunai, ready to implant it into my spinal cord. _Does he really think it'll be that easy?_ I reached back a bit and grabbed his wrist. I pulled, sending him off balance, and swung him around until he was in front of me when I struck his shoulder while releasing some chakra. He fell a couple meters to the side, rolling on the ground and screaming in pain. I pried the kunai out of his hand and tossed his arm to the other side. I now had a fresh layer of bright red across my face, hair and sage cloak. I turned around to face the root Anbu with an insane grin on my face. "Anyone else want to try?"

"Fall back!!! Fall back to the Hokage tower!!!" Suddenly they all turned and ran with their tails between their legs. I saw a couple of puddles where they were previously standing. The huge wave of killer intent I gave off when I said that line probably had something to do with it.

I turned around to face my compatriots. "Pursue them and offer backup at the Hokage Tower! Go!!!" Most of them seemed to snap out of something and start hauling ass toward Hokage Tower. _Good, now the forces at the tower have support on their way._

* * *

The small strike force was running through the halls. The raids are going well enough; I can have a bit of fun. I saw Kakashi's head whip around when there was no one on the side of him on which his shoulder was tapped. He was confused as hell. Suddenly a root patrol saw the group of six and turned to face them head on. "Halt! You are in direct violation of section 2-6-32-6-hey what the!?" Heh. Kakashi was taking a pretty direct approach. He whipped a kunai right at the anbu's forehead, but before it could connect, the root disappeared. After I silently snipped his nerve connectors in his neck, I looked down to see my visibly alarmed and flustered sensei in battle stance obviously expecting some sort of retaliation from this apparently lightning fast Anbu. Ten seconds passed. I audibly chuckled. Suddenly his head snapped up to look at where I was sitting on a rafter with the limp Anbu adjacent. I saw through his unique mask that his eye settled into a mildly annoyed look commonplace when he was dealing with my similar antics back in the old days.

"You realize you're possibly compromising a critical operation, right?" Oh ho ho. He was suddenly getting all high and mighty?

"I also realize that I saved all your asses, on account of the fact that you're far away enough from the documents that at the first opportunity he'd have found, he'd have activated those tags on his back." His eye suddenly held a little less pride and dignity as it had a moment ago.

"They're using kamikazes?!"

"Yeah. Nasty new technique Danzou thought of once his squads started randomly disappearing. Apparently he decided to start using them to guard critical structures. Take care from here on out. You'll probably run into a few more of these guys until about twenty five meters from the documents. That's about fifty meters from here, so there are probably about five hidden in your path. Use that fucked up eye of yours and you should be fine. I'm going to assume you have things under control here and head over to the tower."

"You sure you don't want that mask?"

"I think I'll be alright." I smiled and noticed all of the squad looking up at me with a fallen knee. I noticed two of them, one in the middle row and another in the back, were just barely quivering and had an ever so slightly raised body temperature, with an epicenter of temperature around... "Good luck anyway." I transported to a rooftop outside.

* * *

_One of the primary objectives of the tower raid was to scare Danzou, right? __**Yeah... What did you have in mind?**__ I have a couple ideas... __**Look kit, this is where your little mate is right?**__ I'd phrase it somewhat differently, but yeah. __**This isn't going to make any sense the first time I say it, but you can't stop protecting others in order to protect her. **__As if I'm going to need to worry about that. __**I'm just saying, you know, the top ranked root are going to be there, and they're ten times the inbreeds you took out in the forest.**__ I know, I know. Good thing I'm such a badass. __**Your pride is your undoing. **__Yeah well your mom is a fox... heheh... __**That was awful...**__ Fuck you._ I cut off the conversation after that strange little exchange. I thought the whole fox thing was funny. Now I found myself on a rooftop right next to the Hokage tower. Danzou had chosen not to rebuild the building right in front of the tower last time Konoha was destroyed, so now there was a huge courtyard in front that was now filled with one side of masks fighting another.

I gathered sage chakra and gathered the slightest bit of kyuubi chakra as well. This big flashy entrance was going to take some effort if I wanted to really make my presence known. I felt the natural energy pervade my spirit, and I became suddenly aware of so much more. Mother nature was in pain at all this horrible fighting and there was so much disruption in the natural flow. I ignored that as much as I could, and felt kyuubi sending his chakra. I felt the power and started to shake. My sage pupils were spilt by a kyuubi slash. I felt an aura of knowledge and power gradually spread out, everything within which I had full sense of, sight, smell, sound, touch. It spread to halfway down the building I was standing on. I began to feel the heat and smell the sweat of the fighters. My blood was beginning to boil; sensei was hungry. The aura encircled our side. I suddenly recognized several elite jounin, some of the Konoha 10, some other distinct ninjas and then my breath was knocked out of me.

There she was in the midst of battle. No one else on that battlefield had the privilege of seeing behind that mask and seeing the determination and pride on that beautiful face. There was blood caked on various parts of her, she was covered in sweat, and she was absolutely and completely perfect. _**Focus dammit!!!**_

My aura spread beyond to the root side. I saw a grim look on everyone's face. It wasn't even the regular grim face of an emotionless super soldier fighting a winning battle, but a look of anger, disillusionment, and sparsely spread depression. My aura spread beyond to their backs. I saw the reason for that look. _OH FUCK!!! __**SHIT! GOGOGO!!!**_ On the back of every single Anbu were five highest power explosive tags. _Fuck!!! Why did I take out those squads and let Danzou know I was back!? Of course he would have a fucking trap! Those will take out a whole village block and the whole front of the tower!_ _Fox I'm going to need a whole lot more power! __**Coming right up.**_ I felt the burst. _KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!!!_ Two hundred clones appeared. "Get everyone to a safe area! Scatter!" As soon as I said that, I activated three simple high power flash bang tags I had buried beneath the gravel in the courtyard earlier today. Soon the entire place lit up and was blind besides to my nose. My clones hopped in and brought everyone out.

The smoke cleared. I alone was left on the side occupied previously by the entire KR force. I was face to face with 100 kamikaze root Anbu. "You would sacrifice one hundred of your best to kill two hundred citizens!?!" None of the Anbu were making a move. "You were meaning to take me out weren't you?" I noticed that they had encircled me and blocked off all of my exit paths. _Besides the ones surrounding me, I can't sense any other kamikaze root in the building._ "Then kill me. I CAN'T ESCAPE; KILL ME FOR REAL THIS TIME!!!" They all jumped and started running towards me. They were all near me. There was a barrier jutsu set up to enclose me and all of us. As soon as many of them were holding on to me and I felt several kunai in me at various points, the tags all simultaneously lit. Danzou must have been using a remote trigger. The blood flowing out of them, the corners of my mouth wrenched up into a smile. _5...4...3...2...1. _ "Suckers." I poofed out of existence.

* * *

She was in my arms bridal style. She was still under the effects of the hasty sleep Genjutsu I put on her and everyone else while they were still disoriented after the flash bangs. I placed them all down and poofed leaving the real me kneeling down next to Sakura-chan. People started shaking their heads, jumping up and realizing that they were no longer in the epic battle they once were in. "Naruto!?! What the hell?!?" That was Neji's voice.

"Give it a second." Two seconds passed. Behind me the flames of a huge explosion fumed up and the shockwave knocked most back over. I summoned a clone. "He will now lead you back to the battlefield to see what's left." They followed their orders. _**Come on Kit, we have to go!**__ One fucking second! Danzou's still probably changing his pants so we still have a bit._

I removed her mask. Her eyelids were beginning to gradually flutter open but were still glazed over. I noticed her pupils under half closed eyes settled on my face. Her eyes widened for one moment of clarity and realization, but were soon blurred again, this time with tears. "Na- Na-... Na-...ru-...to-...kun?" She was gasping and tears were flowing. "You...came...b-back!"

"You know me: when I make a promise, I keep it." I then took her into a kiss. She was weary from the battle and caught off guard by this, so at first she just stiffened, but then she melted and brought out her tongue. We made out there on the roof for a full minute or so, but I wanted to go so much longer. If I had though, I would've ended up taking her right then on the rooftop. I reluctantly pulled away and looked at her. Her eyes were still closed, her lips plump and red, and her hair hanging messily to the side. She was a sunset at the apex of twilight while not going any further down the horizon, remaining at the climax of ethereal sublimity for a seeming eternity. I was lost in her when she finally came to her senses and opened her eyes as well. I had to come out with it. "I love you with all of my being. I'm sorry if that freaks you out or if you moved on in the last three years, but I longed for you every single moment of my existence."

"I...I love you too. We... have to continue this when there isn't a battle nearby." She looked like she didn't want to say the last part but was very relieved to have said the first, like she had been holding it in for a very long time. She had almost seemed like she was marveling at the fact that she was actually saying it. I was so happy I couldn't think.

"That's a promise. Are you hurt?"

"I'm low on chakra. That's why I'm not riding you right now." _Holy shit..._ She suddenly turned red. "You know... back to the battle..."

"Of course that's what you meant. Hold on a second." I gathered some extra kyuubi chakra and converted it to my more neutral form of chakra. I focused it in my hand and pressed it to her chest. She gasped and began absorbing the chakra. "How are you now?"

"Much, much better." She was in awe of her own well being at this point. "But shouldn't the kyuubi chakra have..."

"It's just one of the many things I've learned. I've changed a lot Sakura-chan. But the one thing that's never changed is how much I care about you." _Jesus... corny much?_ "Do you feel well enough to go back to battle?" She said she was and got ready to run. "To be honest Sakura, I think I should go in there first. I'll leave a clone, but try not to be seen hanging back with me, because if Danzou figures us out you might be in horrible danger. I'm a criminal in the first and worst degrees in Danzou's eyes, and he'll kill anyone that's ever smiled at me. To that end, you have to promise me that you won't tell people about our little encounter here."

"But I'm not afraid! Someone needs to stand up to this bastard, and I can't lie about you anymore! I kept that message you left me locked up for three years despite everyone telling me you were dead and now to tell them that you didn't come back to me would be horrible!"

"Please Sakura-chan... I will stand up to Danzou soon. But until then you can't reveal any further association to me! I couldn't live with myself if Danzou got to you! By taking part in and partially leading this revolution I'm putting you and all those dear to me at risk! Promise me that you won't draw Danzou's attention." She sighed shakily. She was pissed; that much was obvious, but below that was the sadness that was killing me. It was the reminder that I had abandoned her, and she had to deal with knowing something that all others didn't about the man she loved being alive for three years with everyone around her telling her to move on and thinking she was insane for not getting over the good riddance of the demon.

"I promise. You have to come back soon and kill that tyrant!!! There'll be a meeting three days from now. You have to come back then!! You have to come back!!!" She was afraid now. Her previous loudness had boiled down to heavily exasperated squeaks of lamentation and exacerbation. Was this what my absence reduced her to? _Either that or the torture._ Fuck.

"I promise I will return to save all of you as soon as I can. Please don't cry Sakura-chan..."

* * *

I was going over my plan of attack in my head. _I hope that clone I left her with takes care of her alright._ It had been difficult to switch out without her noticing, but it's a good thing I did, considering I can still feel their chakra back there. I wanted to stay there truly, but there are very pressing issues at hand.

I came upon the scene again although this time there was a massive crater. Much to my disappointment, a battle had started itself up again. Looks like the old 'Let the dumb bastards blow themselves up' wasn't going to work this time. _I can't intervene too much in this or it'll seem like I was just some criminal who came back to Konoha, killed a bunch of people, and blew a bunch of shit up._

I saw that the front of the Hokage tower was broken off. You could see an almost comical schematic of the building from the mission distribution center on the ground floor all the way up to the Hokage's office. Right there, right out in the open, was the cold, heartless bastard himself. _Danzou._ Time to make an impression.

He had about twelve top-ranked root officers around him. _Cowardly motherfucker._ I would have to be subtle here. I made my way up to the office. No one else moved. _Maybe I should take them out all drawn out and showy-like. _I was in the back left corner of the dark room; the desk with Danzou standing in front was in the middle with eight Anbu at the windows and four evenly spread behind the desk.

_Fuuton!_ I brought in a ridiculous gust of air from the battlefield outside which broke every window and shot the shards toward the eight by the windows. I sprang forward to the front left corner of the room throwing four kunai under the guards of the Anbu and dropping them. I then shot right across the eight Anbu behind them, firmly holing a kunai at their spinal cord level. I quickly hid myself as soon as I touched the opposite wall again. Danzou looked around, astonished and deeply frightened to see twelve of his best all taken out within a second.

"What happens when the defenses you build up to box in your sins crumble away?" Danzou looked in the direction I had been in when I said that to find nothing. "It means that those sins can leak out to come bit you in the ass." Same thing: he looked to find nothing. "Slaughter of Uchiha..." I was full on flying around the room now. "Killing of rebels in Amegakure...Purposely not aiding your compatriots while under attack by Pein...Violation of International law...Torture of possible competition for Hokage...Fox Demon exile!!!" I was lifting him up by the neck and he seemed awfully surprised for a moment. He of course buried it as soon as he could under that mask of collected aggression. Of course I felt a sword in me. I was expecting that much. But he wasn't expecting it when I pulled his sword in deeper, grabbed his good arm with my other hand, and dislocated it from his shoulder. He grunted in pain like a bitch. I tossed him on to his desk.

"I will hunt down everyone who has ever known you. You have brought death upon all those you care for by returning." This fucker didn't seem to understand the whole upper hand versus lower hand thing.

"If you even want the slightest chance of living to see a trial, you won't say a word about my appearance to anyone!" And then he starts laughing.

"There's no possible way for you to enforce that. You'd have to kill me."

"Well, considering there's nothing stopping me from doing that..."

"Ha, you'd never. My second in command would take over and carry that out anyway."

"Okay. I suppose I won't kill you. I can, however, do this." I bent his knee to a right angle the other way. He yelled a brief curse. He began speaking through gritted teeth.

"I'm the guy that makes no-emotion people, remember? Do you really think you'll break me?" I pulled the sword that I had long since healed around out of me. Bastard got my liver. _**I'm on it.**_

"Maybe not your spirit, but I can break the shit out your body without actually killing you." He actually tried a kick with his good leg. He decided my next target. I caught and twisted it three hundred sixty degrees. I could see the signs of shock starting to appear. "I suppose all that's left is that fucked up arm of yours." I brought said arm out. I took the metal thing off it. _Sweet Jesus..._

Suddenly the swirling black mass that was his arm engulfed me and started burning me alive. I felt mind-bending pain as well as sorrow from the voices telling me about how I failed everyone. I felt the flesh beginning to fall from bone and bone beginning to liquefy.

I was on the desk pinning my elbow to Danzou's throat and holding down his useable arm with the other. Underneath my closed eyelids were slitted red eyes. _Good save there fox. __**I got your back, kit.**_ "So that's it? That's the whole reason for the Uchiha slaughter? That's what makes you so feared? You stole a bunch of sharingans!?!" Danzou's face had the same gist as before, but with an added cup of frustration at his trump card failing.

"It was the most power I could attain with my chakra levels and skills." I dug my fist into the right side of his face. I felt a few cheekbones shatter. All of this... _ALL_ of this... had been partially caused by one crazy tyrant's lust for power.

"I think I see at least a partial solution here." I gathered some chakra to the side of my flattened hand and released when it came in contact with his deformed shoulder. I tossed the arm to the side and tried to stay out of the line of fire of the blood before I cauterized it with a fast Katon. "And last but not least..." I moved apart the bandages, reached in, and plucked out his right eye. "To finish..." I did a few hand signs. Danzou yelled in rage when I used another Katon to burn his arm and eye to a crisp. His remaining eye was bloodshot and wide open, attempting to make me spontaneously combust through look alone.

"You've mutilated me, now kill me!!! COWARDLY DEMON!!!" He said this when I had turned to go out. I turned around and went to him again, and I was amused by the tiny glint of fear between the rage that was occupying the parts of his body that were still functioning.

"You wish I would, don't you?" I was speaking calmly, with a blank face. "You wish I would free you forever from the sins you've committed in this world? From the festering sores of unrequited cruelty that you've spread everywhere that your fetid claws could reach? From the cries of all the children in far off lands that have been orphaned by your hand? From the latent fear and aggression built up even by the very citizens you're sworn to give your life to protect? Oh, how I'd love to. It would be so easy too." I took out a kunai and balanced it vertically on the tip of my finger, watching how it cut, healed due to the fox, and cut again. "I could do it in so many different ways. Cut your jugular, stab your liver, puncture a lung, cut off another one of your limbs... Hell I could even cut you so many times in different places that you couldn't do a Katon and you'd bleed out. But I won't. I won't give you that freedom or that honor. I only give the honor of dying by my hand to those who fight with honor and for just cause. You have done neither. If I had my way, you would live forever. But, I'll just have to deal with you dying laying in a jail cell in a puddle of your own urine thirty years from now. I think I'll cope. Farewell."

I turned around to what was the window. I yelled down to the battle below along with a flare in chakra to attract everyone's attention. "ROOT ANBU!!!" The battle stopped. It occurred to me that it should've been more difficult to completely halt a professional ninja battle. "Your leader up here has been reduced to a mutilated mass of limbs. Soon Konoha will have a new vision, a new perspective, a new way of the ninja, a new will of fire! For now, we will leave you and let our populace see the effects of one night on your tyranny, your army, and your leader. Farewell, Root." I activated the remaining flash bang tags and summoned many more Kage bunshin to take them all out of the battle again. My clones took all of them to their homes while my real self jumped down and took care of a certain woman.

* * *

I was in her room. I laid her down on her bed and pulled the covers over her. I cast the same restoration jutsu I had used earlier on her and I'm also using on everyone else. I watched her stir from the Genjutsu-induced sleep as the cuts on her body gradually closed up. "Naruto-kun...?"

"You're safe now. I promise I'll be back for that meeting. Promise me you'll not reveal your link to me until then." She was looking at me through clouded eyes, as if she assumed she were still in a dream.

"T-...Take me Naruto-kun..." _!!!... What does she mean?!? Take as in fuck or take as in take her away from Konoha?!? __**Either way it's no, Kit. **__Not helping Fox! Although from the way she said that..._

"I can't Sakura-chan... You know how much I want to do anything and everything to you, but I can't do it right now." My resolve gradually disintegrating was evident in what should have been a firm if only a little regretful tone of voice for that ultimatum.

"But... But why? I love you, I've loved you since a couple of years after the war, why can't we acknowledge that?"

"Sakura... I know you've missed me, and that's evident by the fact that you're trying to force this on account of the fact that you're afraid of losing me again. I'm sorry I had to leave for so long, I really am! But I can't do this right now. I'd end up being here for days..." She smiled at that. She shifted back into vacant sadness.

"But it's been so long... You have no idea how many times I've dreamed of the night you come back and I always wake up right before you come into bed with me to do all sorts of things! Then I have to wake up and go to the hospital with my mind and hormones going to the races with whatever amazing things you would've ended up doing with me which means I can't focus at all and has led to some really awkward situations when the janitor has opened the broom closet to find something he really didn't expect and then I have to go back to work and try to focus on everything with thoughts of you running through my mind all the time until Tsunade-sensei asks what the hell is wrong with me and I either make some bullshit up or tell her it's you and then she tries to make me move on which only made me think about you more and I go home alone again only to repeat the entire process every single d-mm!!" I took her into a kiss to end that ridiculous train of crazy. _**Get out of there Kit!!! **__Did you not hear all that shit? __**Yes, that's why! As soon as she gets at your dick, you'll be there all night and then Danzou's cronies will find you and her for sure.**_

I pulled away and saw her mouth still open and eyes still closed. "I promise, I will ravage the crazy right out of you just as soon as I very possibly can. But I can't right now. By still being here, I'm putting you in danger. I live for seeing you again. I love you." I had gradually made my way to the doorway.

"If you don't come back, I couldn't go on living." _Aw man..._ I inhaled in a mix between a gasp and a gradual catch of breath.

"I will, and if you weren't alive, I couldn't go on living either, which is why I again say that you have to steer clear of Danzou. I will see you as soon as possible."

"I love you too." I turned my weary self back toward the door. As soon as I got out of her sight, I transported away.

* * *

I was on the rooftops. I summoned four high power clones. "Go to the East, South, and West and North gates. Don't kill the guards, just give them the slip and then disappear. I'll follow through the West gate in thirty seconds. Scatter."

I transported to the Senju compound. Tsunade was asleep, otherwise the compound was empty. I made my way over to her sake vault. _What's the combo?__** One second...**_ I noticed the tingle moving from my palm to the padlock that I was resting it on. _**60-34-98-69**__ hehe...__** Grow up.**_ I input the combo and opened the safe with a click; I was greeted with the mother load, like the garden of Eden for alcoholics. I scrawled a note and put it in there. I transported out.

I made my way to the west gate. The area was deserted. _Ha. Worked like a charm._ I high tailed it due West. I braced myself for the long journey. _It'll be good to see Gaara again._

**AN Ho-o-oly crap. That was pretty ridiculously long. One thing that I think will divide some people is my use of the Kyuubi as sort of a "mission control" type thing, but I think it makes sense. Anyone notice the allusion to Poe in the training facility bit? No? Oh well. The use of kamikazes by Danzou makes sense to me too, so... you know. Anyway, I've been working on this for a week and some days and it'll be good to finally post this. Let me know what you guys thought of the battle scenes, the Danzou encounter, and the romance bits. Really let me know what you thought of the romance bits; that's the thing I'm the least sure about. Thanks for reading! Please, PLEASE review!!!**


	8. Backlash

**AN: Hey everybody, Happy Holidays! That was pretty epic last time, wasn't it? I didn't get quite as much response as I thought I would, but that's no biggie, considering the reviews I got were really supportive and good. Things are going to calm down a bit now as we deal with the tempestual shit storm that this little scuffle in the last chapter brought up. Things will stay at a very slow pace considering this fanfic has made a habit of randomly skipping years or weeks. Please read and review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or ninjas, or angst, or drama, or fanfiction, or any of that.**

* * *

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter 8: Backlash

*Beep*_Fuck..._*Beep**thunk* I tried to sit up and pulled the sheet on my mattress with me until it painfully cracked off. I looked back and saw crusty brown. The breath was punched out of me by the wave of memories that flooded back immediately. _Naruto-kun..._ I sat there absorbing everything for a full thirty seconds. I realized that I had woke up at the correct time for work as I was supposed to, considering we were trying to sustain anonymity. I got up and threw all my bloody clothes and sheets into the wash. They were evidence and had to be dealt with accordingly.

I was surprised at the amount of energy I had. The attack had lasted about two hours and now it was five AM, so I was running on five hours of sleep with a battle before. _It must have been that chakra infusion he gave me before he left. _That's another insanity. Somehow he was able to give me kyuubi chakra with no negative effects. I went into the shower to prepare for work.

* * *

The streets were, above all, deceivingly calm. You had to look pretty carefully to find the signs of the history changing event of the night before. The flash of a root squad flying over the rooftops, so quickly that you could never see it if you blink a lot. The vandalized propaganda with the many abuses of Danzou hurriedly scrawled across them. Hell, if you could get high enough, you'd still see small smoke clouds coming from two spots in Konoha.

I walked through the main doors of the hospital calmly. I saw the receptionist see me and her eyes widen. The waiting room was full, but the more unnerving thing about that was that they were all civilians or non-root shinobi. "Sakura-sempai! Tsunade-sama has requested your aid as soon as possible! She's going across the third floor west hallway!" I took the urgency cue and hustled up to the third floor where I saw Tsunade doing an odd mix of trudging and marching across the hall occasionally barreling into a room. I caught her eyes, and they softened in a sigh of relief at aid more competent than the group of civilian attendings following her in a train of confusion and disbelief.

"Sakura, get your ass over here; we need a bone reconstruction in 365, some burn treatment in 366, and gash closures in 367! Move it!!!" I haven't seen her this flustered in a while. She was almost overacting her concern for the root whom she, as all who gave a crap knew, normally loathed. Granted I'd say she was doing a good job playing the whole stressed doctor thing, but it didn't make things any easier for her to be flying around barking at me to do rudimentary medical ninjutsu.

"Where are all the civilian patients?" I saw her angrily sigh for but a moment.

"All civilian patients are on hold until all wounded root soldiers are attended to." I think she might've forgotten to hide her disdain at that fact despite the (mildly, if I may say) injured root soldier glaring at her from the bed to which she was attending.

This root soldier was about to make the mistake of the week. You know, when you see something that's about to happen and you just know. "It's more important for the military force to be prepared. Why would you not want to heal us? Are you part of the resistance?"

"How dare you! You think that you should take precedence over the civilians you exist to protect?!?"

"Are you a part of the resistance? You are speaking treason." _Calm down Shishou...!_

"No! Lay down and shut the fuck up!!!" He seemed to accept it. _Thank God._

We were making our way down the hall. "Sakura, we'll be switching our priority to stabilizing as much and as quickly as possible so we can discharge these root soldiers. I still can't believe Danzou would try to-- so, what's wrong with you... *bzzt* There you go, you're fine, try and get out of here ASAP--I can't believe the nerve--How are you feeling... that's to be expected NEEEXT!" I was struggling to keep up between her bitching about Danzou amid rather cavalier methods of patient treatment.

"Are we still going to be on for training?"

"Yes but just come an hour later. This rush should only be a few hours longer. Then we can start worrying about the civilians and things should go back to about normal." So we went on like that for one of the busiest mornings we've had in a long time.

* * *

I arrived in Tsunade-sama's office to find her frazzled, frustrated, and very mildly buzzed. The rush ended about an hour ago, so she's probably been here keeping that sake jug company since. "Hi sensei."

"Sakura... What do you think is going to happen?" Correction: She was much farther gone than I originally realized. She only got this worried and existential when she's had at least four. Another twelve and she'll be doing karaoke on top of her monument head.

I quickly put up my best privacy ninjutsu to prevent any eavesdropping. "Don't you mean what did happen? If my guess is right, you slept through the entirety of the raids."

"Well, that too. My worst fear is that a lot of KR's members last night died, on account of the fact that none were checked into the hospital." Oh shit! I guess no one told her about his healing thing yet.

"Naruto took care of it all." Her eyes widened. "It was amazing, sensei; you wouldn't believe it. He transmitted some chakra to me, and it healed me completely; I think he did with everyone. That was, of course, after he accomplished the main objectives of our raid completely on his own." She was not responding. I suppose this is a lot to compute. "Apparently Danzou has started to use Kamikaze root Anbu. Naruto saw this and carried all of us away before causing them to detonate with no casualties on our end."

"H-How?"

"I don't know. Suddenly we were just all knocked out and when we got up there was a huge explosion. We talked for a bit and Naruto went back and went to Danzou's office to do... something..." She suddenly had a look of fear with a semblance of panic mixed in there a bit. I wondered. "What?"

"Sakura, have you seen Danzou this morning?" It was more of a statement than a question. I decided to limit the rhetoricallity of it.

"No."

"Yeah, I had to heal him first thing this morning. You think some of these root goons were bad. He was pretty fucked up physically, but what's scarier is that in all my years of knowing the bastard, I've never, _ever_ seen him this afraid." That alone was enough to freak the shit out of anyone, even without seeing or knowing who did it.

"What'd he do to him?"

"whew... Where should I start... Well, one of his knees was bent completely forward. The other one was twisted full circle. One of his shoulders was dislocated, and the other arm was gone along with his eye." She seemed to acknowledge the look on my face. _Holy shit!!!_ "Yeah, I don't know what the fuck Naruto was thinking at the time, but he basically reduced the leader of a world power to muck on the bottom of his shoe. The weird thing was that he did the basic work to ensure that Danzou wouldn't die. The hole his arm used to be was fully cauterized and he'd barely lost any blood. It's some of the most twisted shit I've ever seen." We sat there in a semi-awkward silence for a bit, while I tried to comprehend everything, and she seemed to be recovering from the memory she'd just corroborated. "Anyway, I suppose KR accomplished its goals. We have the scrolls of most major clans as well as the teaching scrolls from the now-nonexistent training facility..." I looked up, surprised. "Yeah, he blew it up, go figure. The KR has most of the support of the public, and now Danzou and the remaining three quarters of root at top health are scared shitless, despite the fact that they'd never admit it."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. We both paled. I immediately switched off my jutsu and scattered some paperwork as Tsunade made it look like we had been doing some everyday training exercise. Tsunade called come in way too sweetly to be realistic. She might as well have crooned, "We weren't discussing blatant acts of treason."

The door opened and there stood Konohamaru. Tsunade and I simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. "What were you guys doing in here?"

Tsunade looked uneasy and I redid a confidentiality jutsu as he closed the door. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's just that a knock on this door is normally greeted with a 'da fuck do you want' as compared to what you said which, in all honesty, sounded like it could've come from you lying naked on a bed covered in rose petals." Tsunade had the grace to blush as her fist clenched. The brat certainly does know how to paint a picture. He had on his best version of a shit-eating grin. _Bastard reminds me way too much of Naruto-kun..._

"I'm sure you had a more important occasion for coming here than to hit on me, honored grandson," she said sarcastically as I chuckled lightheartedly.

His face turned serious. "This morning I received word from a group of civilians. It appears they assembled pretty quickly after we told them about the KR last night. The town is divided between people who aren't doing anything and I get the sense just don't really care, and a group of organized, able bodied if untrained men who pledge undying allegiance to the regimes of grandpa, you, the yondaime, and the Resistance. Danzou wasn't as popular with the civilians as he let on, something about unwarranted war taxes as well as the whole civil-liberties thing. They are ready to raise hell on my word." No wonder he was so happy. It had occurred to me that times were a little dire to be nonchalantly making jokes, but I dismissed it because that's just how he is. Him and...

"The meeting still isn't for three days so tell them to just prepare for now, but that is excellent."

"We're going to have a full scale revolution, aren't we?" Both sets of eyes were on me and I realized I was the one who had said that. We all sat there for a bit. "Doesn't something strike you guys as off? Anything at all? Like this is all just too easy? I mean, one night of four raids and suddenly the regime of one of the most twisted tyrants in ninja history's regime is tearing apart at the seams? No further retribution? Not even one casualty on the side of the resistance? Doesn't something strike you wrong with all this?" I don't know why I was suddenly doubting everything, but I was. I was speaking my thoughts straight. Judging from their reaction, I was stirring something in the back of their minds as well. "I mean... Naruto isn't coming back for a whole three days... Now that Danzou knows it's Naruto he's after, he could take and... do stuff to those close to him."

"That means all three of us and especially you, Sakura, are in serious danger. I don't think we have death to fear, but serious torture is a definite possibility as well as threatening death to draw him out, since I think even he knows that if he was to kill you, Naruto would go ape shit and not stop until every single root was nothing more than Danzou was reduced to last night, but the point remains. Sakura, one thing you still need to understand is the depth of Danzou's cruelty. He carved up my back to dispel even the latent thought of reinstating my rule. Now that he knows you are linked to his number 1 on the to do list, he will do whatever he needs and probably a lot that he doesn't in order to draw out or piss off Naruto. Anything you could think of, he'd do. Just please be careful." Tsunade was expressing her worry through her mission objectives tone, but I've known her long enough to still get the full message.

Konohamaru was itching to say something. "Do we know where Naruto is right now?"

Tsunade seemed to turn it over a couple of times in her head. "Well, if I had to guess, I'd probably say--"

"Suna... He went to Suna." Tsunade seemed slightly caught off-guard by the interruption, but she didn't really care too much. "He probably went to go secure aid from Gaara, as well as support from a powerful once ally for the change in power. The alliance between Konoha and Suna only recently dissolving by the work of Danzou, it makes perfect sense. My only hope is that it doesn't backfire and end up with Danzou declaring war on Suna."

Konohamaru, again, looked deeply perturbed about something. "What about the council--"

"Danzou's got the council and the Daimyo wrapped around his finger. Those two geezer advisors of his haven't lifted a finger yay or nay in years and the rest of the council, Shikaku and them, are a distinct minority, and it's not long until they'll be accused of being part of the KR." I was really having a field day with interrupting people. Then again that accusation wouldn't exactly be false, but the KR's been pretty consistent about sworn secrecy, and the whole 'back' thing has actually worked out pretty well.

Immediately, there was a knock at the door. It was a fast, hard, but not demanding knock. Tsunade gave a considerably more gruff signal to enter, having taken the hint from Konohamaru. There was an innocent pawn of Danzou, one of the victims of his propaganda. One who loved their brave, ambitious, benevolent leader, trusted him with his taxes, and earnestly wondered why these criminals were causing such unwarranted havoc within his elite military taskforce. "Have you heard, Tsunade-sama? They caught the leader of the resistance!" _What...?_

"That's great!" _Whew..._ Tsunade was handling this one. It would've taken a skilled ninja or psychiatrist to pinpoint the distress and panic hidden within that predictable response, but I'm still glad she had it on account of the fact that by the looks of it, the sputtering nonsense that would've come out of me or Konohamaru at that point just wasn't going to cut it. At least I did better than Konohamaru; where I forced through a mildly insane smile, he only managed a dumb look of confusion and distress. The civilian didn't seem to notice or care.

The civilian ran off singing back to Tsunade about where said leader was now. This left us alone again, and Tsunade took that opportunity to reveal the look of attempting to push a brick through. "Sensei... Who could they mean?"

She looked very, very nervous. She suddenly stood up and scurried out followed by me and the teenager. The scene outside and around the room with all the commotion was a scene of clearly cut division. There were the civilians under the influence of Danzou looking relieved or happy; there were root ninja looking empty as always; and there were others, attempting to hide as best as possible the despair and discomfort at seeing their leader and friend.

I turned the corner and went into the room behind Shishou and with Konohamaru tailing close behind. I gasped, having seen a horrible combination of yellow, orange, and red. _Wha?! bu--what the-- no--it can't--how--NARUTO!!_ His mouth was open and his teeth were gritted; on his face was an expression of indistinct defiance mixed with shame and regret. His arms, legs, and head were chained to the bed he was on. He was hooked up to a bunch of medical machinery, and he was still alive, but barely. I had started to mutter nonsensical expressions of disbelief and angst, and my head suddenly felt like half of it was gone. I saw the ceiling. Tsunade's voice was far away, "Looks like she fainted! Must be PMS or something you know us women HAHA!" I remembered noticing the majority of other people in there being male, and root at that, and I could just picture their response to that horrific excuse Tsunade fabricated.

I woke up back in Tsunade's office, and only a minute or two had passed. "N-Naruto-kun!" Tsunade's head, having formerly been wearily rested on her hands, perked up immediately at my panicked exclamation. "Where is he!?!"

"Quiet Sakura!!! Damn, you're going to have the entire root force on us if you keep that up!!!"

"Where is Naruto!?!" Fuck calming down. He can't be dead, not after all this. It doesn't make any sense. How could he get caught after all he did last night?

Konohamaru just looked frustrated and fidgety. "Are you seriously that easily fooled? Danzou's just fucking with us again. The bastard is going to try to demoralize the resistance."

Tsunade considered this. "Hold tight here. I'm going to go ask Danzou if I should heal him. Then I can find out whether that's really Naruto. Either way, you have to remain calm, Sakura. Knowing Danzou he's probably going to publicly execute whoever that is under the guise that it's the leader of the resistance. If you show anything less than just satisfaction at that, Danzou will string you up worse than you can imagine. Wish me luck." With that, she got up and left. Konohamaru got up as well, saying he had shit he had to do, leaving me in a puddle of my own mixed up feelings and perceptions. I got up and went to clear my head by checking on some patients.

* * *

I was walking through the hallway. Going to try and clear my mind hadn't worked; I should've known as much. Time never works to resolve things in my head. If anything, it leaves such things time to fester and cause me to question even the givens of a problem I'm dealing with. Either that or I don't think at all and just worry.

On my weary way, I decided to go back and see the whole sequence of events with the whole 'Naruto caught' thing that I've been turning over in my head relentlessly. I came to a horribly unwelcome sight. Tsunade was in handcuffs with root holding on to her from both sides. I was still a good twenty yards down the extremely long hallway and saw the incident. From that distance, Tsunade shot me the 'Get the fuck out' look and I immediately ducked into a room. From there, I heard Tsunade's protests of innocence and anger as the root dragged her off. "How dare you do this to me!"

"You wouldn't want to heal the enemy unless you were the enemy."

"What the fuck are you talking about!?!" It went around in circles like that for a while. They went by the room I was hiding in but did not notice me, although the patient was a little confused. I managed to gracefully wave it off before I hauled ass down the hallway the other way. I stopped before the room with someone I hoped wasn't Naruto in it. I wanted to go in but realized I couldn't so I calmly and nonchalantly walked by before regaining my previous speed. I made my way home as quickly as possible while retaining the air of civilian ignorance. The fences and the throngs of people in the marketplace seemed to be closing in around me. I saw the root up on some pillars, observing, watching, plotting. Everything was spinning._ One foot in front of the other..._ What the hell are they thinking? How could they know? The Anbu shift hasn't changed since the news had broken. They shouldn't know about him, let alone my involvement with him! _Breathe..._ Who the fuck is this dude!?! Why is he looking at me like that!?! Fuck him and his groceries! What's with that Anbu?!? He just said something!!! He moved!!! They're going to come for me!!! _CALM THE FUCK DOWN!!!_

I got to my door, still scared shitless. My hand was shaking, and I missed my key slot a couple of times. I undid the seal quickly, went in, redid the seal, and fell down on my bed. Worry overtook me. This mighty ninja that can make mountains crumble and bring back armies from the brink of death by her skill alone, lay down on her bed and cried. I hate being so god damn powerless. It sucks. I've built up all these skills, all these merits, all this honor, but take away my boyfriend and sensei, and I'm still a fucking twelve year old crying into my pillow.

* * *

I eventually got up and finished some paperwork; I bored of that quickly and proceeded to laze around my tiny apartment trying to find anything to occupy my mind. I couldn't. I was sitting, watching TV, when I felt the slightest hint of something. I shook it off. I shouldn't have. Suddenly I was confronted with three root Anbu, all with faces as grim as their leader. "Haruno Sakura," the ninja in the middle declared, "Because of association with Namikaze Naruto, you are under arrest for involvement with the resistance."

"That's preposterous!" I was using a tone I practiced in order to mix enough innocent confusion in with anger while not letting through any agitation or sorrow. "On what grounds?!?"

"You were in very close contact with Namikaze Naruto during the attacks yesterday, and now that you have fulfilled any use to us by healing our troops this morning, you are under arrest. Come peacefully or you will be incapacitated." _Shit..._ I suppose I'm caught. Might as well go for broke.

I did a back flip catching the middle Anbu in the chin while throwing kunai at the two others. I suppose they were ready for that much. The middle Anbu caught my feet and threw them back down under me while the other two caught the kunai, grabbed me, and held them to my throat. The middle Anbu had begun to trot to the door by the time they had bound me. "She's struggling a lot."

"Just knock her out and be done with it." I hate being so god damned powerless.

* * *

**AN: I am so, soooooooooo sorry that took so long. I know it's been so friggin long since I posted and I know that is a gigantic pain in the ass for all of you really trying to follow this story (can't thank you enough, by the way), but it took a huge amount of time to get all this down. PLEASE REVIEW!! I mainly want to know if I still produce good stuff despite having immense writer's block. Thanks for reading and please review!!!**


	9. The Cavalry

**AN: Hey everybody. Sorry about this being so long after the last chapter, even when I apologized about being slow last time. I'm starting this Jan 7, but by the time you read this it'll be like, the 14th, so... sorry. As usual, I could give you a whole shitload of excuses like finals coming up, getting Assassin's Creed II, or reading the entire series Love Hina over a period of two weeks (laugh it up), but I'm sure none of you really care so here we go. Look on the bright side: I'm back in school, which means this is again my angst vent by means of sarcastic, bitter prose. Hooray.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and all that.**

**Note/caution: There's another really gruesome bit in this. If you were able to last through that other one you should be good, but be warned.**

* * *

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter Nine: The Cavalry

*Beep**Beep**Beep*...*BEEP*...*BREEEEEEEEEEEEPP* *thunk* My eye opened. I once again took in the sight of my ceiling. I pushed off the sheet cover and sat cross legged on my bed, and proceeded to do my morning meditation. I finally put down Icha Icha Tactics and looked at the clock. 9:30. Today is the day of the meeting. The meeting to decide the future of Konoha.

I sat there for a bit, unsure of what to do. I'd have went to have remainder-of-team training with Sakura, if I or anyone else knew where she was. That's for another time though. I have to plan, but first I'll do some training. As I finished my morning preparations, I noticed something. I was about to switch off the seal on my door when I looked at it. It seemed slightly turned, as if thrown off balance. It was only a half or quarter degree difference, but it was there sure as hell. I studied it for a moment. The difference was miniscule, and if I hadn't been sure to always do it in exactly the same way, I surely would not have noticed it. No, this was the work of someone skilled. Someone trained to be able to make it look good did this. However, this does bear some signs of being done overly "efficiently," by a skilled jounin who fancies himself elite. _There's no mistaking it. Root._

I was being overly cautious, but I decided it couldn't hurt to check it out. I opened my other eye and stiffly shoved out some chakra. The world jumped into phosphorescent blurriness. I looked at the seal, and sure enough, there was a chakra line leading directly to-- _Whoa!_ Imbedded in my walls were a network of chakra-linked explosive tags. If I'd opened the door, I'd have been a goner. _Well doesn't that suck. I suppose I won't be going to report to the Hokage today, then._ I disarmed the connection to the door seal, and got out a storage scroll.

About a half-hour had passed. I did a basic henge, walked out the door, and did a hand sign. My now mostly empty apartment blew to smithereens. _That should keep them guessing. _I applauded myself on that little bit of effort plus the fake charred remains I put in there.

I walked the path I've known for so many years. I reached the polygonic structure engraved with the names of people I've failed, people that have saved me, and some I'd never known. The monument to the Third Great Ninja War. The wave of nostalgia flooded back. I was still just a kid. Sure I was a Jounin, but I was just as green as Naruto and Sakura during the Fourth War. _I'm sorry Obito...Rin...Sensei..._ I reverted to an empty mind for a while. I felt nothing but vague remorse mixed with pride in the virtue of these who have gone before me. I began to wonder if there would be yet another one of these. These monuments often end up being the main source of the canticle of the history of Konohagakure. Might there be one for the Konoha Civil War? Perhaps this is my life. Soldier and commander in the Third and Fourth Ninja War and genin-team sensei of the Nanadaime. Finally fell in the Konoha Civil War? Emptiness once again. I felt vain for doing so, but the honest part of me hoped it would be so. Then I couldn't fuck it up at all. The only other thing worth it would be to have a kid. I shook off that train of thought. I'd been down that road countless times before. It only ends in regret, sadness, self-loathing and despair. Besides, things need to settle down before I can.

I undertook the second leg of this misery business and made my way to the next memorial. The Fourth Great Ninja War. I wasn't the only one here paying my respects. I saw the familiar sight of a little boy grabbed on to his mother's leg, an expression of childish wonder and awe mixed with expected sadness depicted on his tiny face. I recognized the both of them. "Don't you normally just go to his grave? Asuma had the blessing of having his body found."

Kurenai-san had very little expression on her face, and the young one was almost ignoring me. "Well, I thought I'd see the special treatment he got for dying in the war, even if it was only in the build up to it." Conversation between her and me stopped. I suspected she'd know it was me. The boy that was looking at me now was confused though.

"Mommy, who's that?" Kurenai's face or eyes didn't move.

"That's Kakashi, but he's in disguise. Some bad men came for him, so now he's hiding."

"Sorry about that Gokamaru, but it's really for the best that I'm not seen around right now. Working hard to become a ninja?"

"Yup. I started the academy a bit ago and it's really hard, but I'm working and I can actually throw shuriken straight now!"

"Great, little man! Now, I got to go soon, so you mind if you go over and practice your shuriken for a minute while I talk to your mom about some boring grown-up stuff?" He agreed and ran off to do kid stuff. "Heh... Fierce fire all right..." She sent me an incredulous look along with a small amount of pain at remembrance as she stiffly exhaled.

"You said you had something to discuss."

"Are you coming to the meeting?"

"No. I couldn't get a sitter. I'll get someone to let me know what happens."

"Fair enough. I'll tell you to be extremely careful generally in the foreseeable future though." She looked a signal to elaborate. "They've started to actively hunt down the resistance. Just this morning, I awoke to a house completely rigged with tags set to go when I undid my door seal." Her face didn't move, but that was to be expected. Her face didn't move much anymore, except with Gokamaru. Besides, I doubt that information was that much of a surprise. "I haven't been able to locate Tsunade-sama or Sakura for the last couple days. Plus, I think you know about who they say they've found."

She looked at me. "They said it was the leader of the resistance. I'm not sure who they mean though. One possibility that makes sense with the disappearance of Sakura and Tsunade-sama is that they've found Naruto. I don't know how they could play it with saying that he died originally."

I had my book out again, but I couldn't get into the story. It either happens or it doesn't. Either I will be caught and my mind will be transported to the world of loose women and invincible protagonists, or the connection won't be made and I will be stuck repeatedly making the effort to reach out and grab the ledge to pull myself up onto the cliff of that magical world. "It could be that they'd just say he was always planning to rise against his rule and if anyone objects to that deception, he could arrest them because they're most likely part of the resistance."

"That sucks."

"Indeed. ..." We stood there for a while. Gokamaru got bored and came back to drag his mother away. I was left alone in my clouds of vacant sorrow. I stood there, thought, sighed, regretted, and contemplated. By the time I left and ran a few errands, it was already well into the afternoon.

I came back to the street, and was surprised by the commotion that had arisen. I asked a passerby. "The Hokage has ordered all citizens to the courtyard in front of the tower. He better have a damn good reason, because it's being enforced by his elite ninja. You'd be best advised to get there quick." I thanked him and made my way to the tower plaza fearing the worst.

* * *

I was greeted with a sight that made my brain panic and my stomach nauseous. There was the toad sage, savior of the will of fire, chained to a wooden pillar right in front of the Hokage tower and everyone in the village. His father's cloak was on his back, and his forehead protector had a long scratch through the leaf and blood oozing from the head above and forehead underneath. His eyes were clenched shut, and his teeth were gritted. He was struggling against the chains.

I stood there in shock for a moment, chaining my and emotional mask to my face to be sure to show naught but nothingness. For the first time in my life, I was truly rendered speechless. For all he's done, for all he's shown he's capable of, here he was. Reduced to a body, strung up quite literally in front of the entire village. Looks like Danzou wants to make an example.

"Do you see what becomes of those who resist?" Danzou had walked up to the post and was directly addressing the crowd. I looked upon the rest of said crowd and saw civilian throngs with faces of surprise and awe at the crucifixion of a hero of recent years. I also saw the remainder of the previous generation, those who had lived long enough to remember the fox attack, and I was disgusted with their look of pride. They were, quite literally for some of them, sticking their noses up at this scum who was only now getting what should have come to him when he was a toddler. It's those people that make me wonder whether mankind can go any further.

"This criminal disobeyed orders a long time ago and came back to brutally and randomly massacre upwards of two hundred of my best soldiers! He even personally injured me to the point of near death! But, honest, virtuous citizens of Konoha, today, justice shall be served! This slime shall be wiped from the pages of Konoha's history as surely as his existence shall soon be wiped off this earth!!!"

As if I couldn't be any more disgusted, a horrible sound echoed through some of the crowd. It's sound haunts me, tears at the deepest recesses of my moral conscious, and makes me feel like tearing myself and those around me to shreds. There were cheers. People were clapping, and I heard some calls of, "kill the demon," or, "give that dirt what-for!"

"Now this," he shot a smug look at Naruto, "monster would most likely want this to be over quickly, but we shall give him no such pleasure, will we?" More cheers and affirmative nos. "We have arranged for a special punishment for this horrible creature, and it shall begin as soon as we can, so pay very close attention." Suddenly Naruto looked up, and then side to side. I followed his horrified gaze to find two horses facing opposite directions on both sides of him, ropes connected to each with plenty of slack, being walked painfully slowly by root over to Naruto, the arms of whom were being wrenched out of the chains. Naruto's eyes had started to dart back and forth, increasing in horror and panic. He suddenly looked to Danzou, who was looking straight ahead. His chest began heaving up and down as they tied his arms with the ropes. He suddenly looked to the crowd. No one was moving. Why wasn't he saying anything? Why wasn't he doing anything? Why wasn't he going Kyuubi and burning the entire fucking place down?

His head was darting back and forth at this point. There was some slack in the ropes, I guess so they could pick up some speed. Every non-root ninja looked like they were about to pass a cinderblock. "Now, all of you." Danzou's face was as stone as the monument it now dominated. "You will not resist." The root at each horse whipped them, and they sprung forward. His head was darting back and forth, and he was starting to blather in dismay.

There was a horrible tearing. "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" He was convulsing and twitching. He kept screaming. Blood shot out from his shoulders and there was a trail of blood where his arms were being dragged through the dirt. His eyes crossed, and he was just trying to breathe. Some of the blood squirted to the first couple rows of villagers. There were children there.

I was still looking forward in shock, when suddenly I saw a mask. I was still way far back and he was still far in the front, but I knew he saw me. I also realized I forgot to mask my chakra signature. Exactly two seconds passed. Suddenly he signaled three other nearby anbu as well and pointed towards me. I disappeared. I was flying around the village rooftops, but they were hot on my trail. I occasionally managed to flip during a jump and chuck a kunai at them, but all that did was to slow them down a bit. I went down into a narrow alley with town house windows on both sides and clotheslines and such draping across. To my luck, some old person that probably couldn't make it to the lynch opened a shutter at just the right moment to take one of them out and the other in that pair that managed to miss the obstacle, got his neck caught on a clothesline and was thrown by his own momentum to the street below.

Having sped away from that, there were only two left. Bastard underestimated me. _Sending only four anbu. Pfft._ I sprang forward to a drop off to a much shorter roof and fell so I was out of sight. The novices went straight forward, surprised to find that I wasn't there anymore. By the time they turned around, I had jumped forward and they each had a kunai in their throats. I sprang away even faster than I had been going. As soon as I was fifty meters away, I did another basic henge and walked through the mostly empty streets, making sure to mask my chakra signature as well as possible. I had gone in a circle and was near the plaza again.

The now two-limbed person that was supposedly Naruto was still heaving, but he was losing energy and blood extremely fast. There began to be a commotion. I don't know why, but there was suddenly movement in the crowd, like that of a boat leaving waves in its wake. I thought I could see why. Danzou was preparing a sword. Maybe the movers in the crowd thought that if a riot was started, they'd be too busy putting it down to take out Naruto. Time was running out.

Danzou turned to Naruto and raised the sword. I did not expect what happened next. Suddenly a medium sized man in an old-fashioned anbu mask jumped onto Danzou's back implanting a kunai in his spine. Before they hit the ground, the assassin had several shuriken and kunai in him. However, the Danzou that had the knife in him dissolved into tar as black as his soul. The assassin looked up at the new Danzou that had just walked in from somewhere and screamed, "NOO!!! FUCK!!!" and lunged at him, only to land on a sword. _That voice... Oh no..._ Danzou lowered the body to the ground. He reached, took off the mask, and visibly recoiled. I didn't need to look to see who it was or why Danzou was so shocked. Laying on the stage, blood soaking his now tattered, old, long scarf, was Konoha's most honorable grandson of the Third Hokage, Konohamaru.

I wanted to move, but didn't know what to do. Wanted to act, but didn't know the circumstances. Quickly enough, Danzou's stoic features turned to unbridled rage, and he lifted the sword again. Konohamaru smiled and whipped open his jacket. I slapped my eyes shut and all I heard was the deafening crack of the flash bang tags going off. I opened my eyes and saw everyone in the entire plaza disoriented and off their guard. To be safe, I tossed three smoke bombs onto the stage as I hopped on a grabbed Konohamaru. He was way too bloody; I really have to hurry. He was struggling a bit. ""Da fuck'r you!?"

"It's Kakashi, save your voice, and stay awake." He pointed to his ear and I saw the blood dripping down from it. "IT'S KAKASHI, SHUT THE FUCK UP." I shouted that right in his ear, and he understood. I wondered where I could go. I decided I'd go to the KR HQ and patch him up myself.

We arrived at Tsunade's compound; luckily, the root hadn't repossessed that yet after taking Tsunade. Okay, so I'm not really sure, but it's not like two highest rank ninjas in the KR could be randomly hit by a speeding carriage without anyone knowing about it. I wound through the hallways down to the vaultish door. I put him down. "What the hell are we doing here?" I had put some chakra to his eardrums on the way.

"Believe it or not, this is the actual gate to the KR HQ." I began doing the hand signs to deactivated the advanced seal I left last time just in case root had started looking everywhere right after the attack.

"Wasn't that up on the street though?"

"Teleportation ninjutsu is actually elementary to the Senju clan as long as it's only a matter of a few meters or so." I bit my thumb and took some blood to the seal to complete the process.

"Really?"

"It's a tunnel up there that we open up with a false wall, smart one. Let's go."

I took him inside and put him in the improvisational medical room, the sheets of which had luckily been changed by Tsunade after Sakura's initiation. He had cuts all over him, and that gaping sword gash in his side wasn't helping, although it looked good in the sense that only blood was coming out of it and relatively slowly, meaning I don't think any internal organs were ruptured. Danzou must've been a little flustered, or he would've been sure to strike a vital. He must've suspected someone would try to do this, right?

I channeled chakra and activated my sharingan, though I kept my headband down, considering I didn't actually need to see anything. I remembered the healing jutsu I copied one time and got to work on the sword wound. It was long and arduous, but he was fine soon enough. I just had to ask, "What the hell were you thinking?!"

"He was going to kill Naruto! What the hell was I supposed to do! I couldn't just wait there and watch while he killed him!"

"Ok, first of all, an armless Naruto at that point wasn't worth a jounin with large influence on the civilians." He cringed. He knew that much, but just didn't want to admit it. "Second of all, you should've been able to see what was really up." He looked up.

"What?"

"Come on. You're a jounin now, so you should know all this too. It's not like it's hard to figure out." His eyes still broadcasted pure confusion. I suppose the head strength of his mentor also came with proportionate hardheadedness of the same. "Why wouldn't he go apeshit and blow the entire place up before the whole arm thing? At the very least, he wouldn't let Danzou get away with all that without saying some sort of defiant slogan from the post." Suddenly he understood. I stood up. "Stay here and get better. People will start showing up in a few hours. I'll be in the other room planning until then. Let me know if you need anything."

* * *

I went and opened up the tunnel and the false wall, along with the identity-aware trap systems. People began to show up and went into the main conference room to converse with the others. At some point Ino showed up, at which point I directed her to the ailing youth still clumsily, at least according to Ino, patched up and waiting on the bed in pain. I thought very long and thoroughly over what to do. Perhaps a political overthrow. Maybe just intimidation. Perhaps we could work behind the scenes to cut the funding of root somehow. Maybe we should just kill everything and rise from the ashes a new village.

It the time approached to begin discussion. I was greatly relieved to see Shikamaru still with us, as well as almost all of the elites. A few of the chunin and genin had run off, and I was expecting as much, but it still wasn't exactly a good omen. Tsunade and Sakura were still nowhere to be found. "It's good to see you." I had long since deactivated my henge and was giving a weary smile. "I thought I would have to spell out some sort of intelligent plan for these people."

He had been brooding near the front of the room with his eyes closed and that odd kata of his occupying his hands. An eye of his opened, asking me why I had interrupted his inner monolog. "Who said you won't?"

"I don't know, but we both know you're the best of the both of us at considering all variables and possible paths of action, so I suppose I was at least hoping for you to perhaps outline for me what to say."

"Well, aren't we in a predicament. I was hoping for the same thing. So I suppose we're about to face three hundred strong with absolutely no idea what to tell them to do."

"Pretty much."

"Well, maybe we should postpone the--hey wait!" I had already made my way up the podium.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the resistance, first of all, I want to congratulate all of you on our victories. We have the subject matter of root training from the now gone training facility, so we know all their formations and techniques. We have the scrolls of most clans in Konoha, so Danzou no longer has any leverage save economics with the main clans; that leverage is now within our hands. There is reportedly a large civilian force ready to deploy at a moment's notice. Danzou and his forces got the shit scared out of them from that attack on the tower, and a bunch of his best were lost to defensive pursuits. The challenge is what to do now. My chief strategist and I each thought the other was thinking of something, so, to stall for him, anyone have any questions?" I finished with a generous eye-smile. It was force of habit to ignore the rolling of eyes and scoffs at my unprofessionalism.

"What of the non-resistance shinobi that had direct involvement in the raids?" It was a friend of Tsunade's; a jounin I didn't know very well.

I sighed. "The shinobi that worked in the raids was indeed Namikaze Naruto." There were some gasps and a lot of surprised faces, along with some grave ones who have already done the math. "Now, considering what I'm assuming you all saw this afternoon, the status of Naruto is unclear. He should not and will not be relied upon to solve all the problems of this force. We outnumber root by half; that sort of Messiah won't be necessary to topple Danzou."

Another hand went up from Ino, who was sitting next to a now professionally healed Konohamaru. "What happened to Sakura and Tsunade-sama?" _Shit. I should've seen that one coming._

"The whereabouts of Sakura and Tsunade are at this point unknown." There were some murmurs and a lot of wearied, worried look arounds. "We must not let these losses get to us. This effort still has a lot of forward momentum, and we can't lose that just because we have lost some dear comrades. Their efforts must not be in vain." I looked over to Shikamaru, and he gave me the affirmative that he had something to say.

He came up to the podium. "Ladies and gentlemen, the next logical step for this resistance is also likely to be the most difficult. What I believe should be done is separation, and the setting up of a resistance camp nearby outside the border. That way we can clearly discern the loyalties of the populace as well as not risking their safety with a battle in the village. In order to actually take Danzou's power, we have to make it so our ways are better. That should be pretty easy considering the spying and suspension of rights, but Danzou can use his propaganda to spin that whatever way he wants. To that end, we can't put the people in any unintentional danger, or our ability to persuade anyone will be gone along with any just leverage we previously had. One problem is that most of the area surrounding Konoha is dangerous forest." He would've went on, but some people in the back stood up, rudely interrupting.

"Good thing that won't be an issue." Three people ripped their shirts open, revealing a torso covered in high power explosive tags. The middle one made a hand sign. Nothing happened. He panicked and tried over and over again to make the hand sign, but it persisted to fail. One second passed.

"You're right; it won't." The voice came from behind them, and I recognized it immediately. I had flipped up my headband right when they revealed their tags, but I realized it wouldn't be necessary for me to transport them to another dimension when he utterly failed in their activation. The chakra was going, but the tags were all duds. They all spun around in their same triangle. A foot landed on each of the two further back's heads and two swords went through them to meet at the head of the third. Blood spewed, and the bodies landed with a thunk and a graceful flip of their assailant, the masked figure being greeted upon standing with a group of kunai bearing shinobi scared shitless. The mask was blank with the exception of two eyeholes. The rest of the outfit was black with little bits of red and orange and a white cape. He removed the swords from their previous encasings and sheathed them on alternate sides. He lifted up the mask slowly to reveal a calm smile. Upon seeing everyone in their fight-or-flight stance, it changed to his very own toothy grin. "What's up?"

_Heh. Cocky bastard._ There he was, arms and all, with all the bombast and association flying in behind him at a delayed pace, panting to catch up with his entry. "B-Boss!!!" Konohamaru tried to stand up, but a grab and stern look from Ino made him sit down, with a barely faltered look of excitement. That led to the wave of bad news I suddenly remembered I would have to tell him about.

"Hey everyone. Wha'd I miss?" After a couple of seconds, Naruto began to look surprised and worried at the fact that everyone was looking at him like they'd seen a ghost. "What, got something on my face?"

"No, it's just that you died. Twice." I said that.

"Fair enough. Twice?"

Konohamaru looked shocked. "You didn't see the whole thing today?!"

Naruto's face turned serious. He looked to me, and I informed. "Probably some ploy by Danzou, but today you were publicly executed in front of the entire village populace by having your arms torn off and then being stabbed repeatedly." Even his eyes widened a bit. "While we're at it, what's with those people you offed just now? They'd been regular members for years. And what happened to their tags."

"Stitches. Looks like Kabuto's got a new funder. And I disarmed them when I arrived a bit ago." Of course. Three days. Danzou thought Naruto must've high-tailed it somewhere far away, and he thought that even the depiction of the hero dying would demoralize and disorganize the remaining resistance. Funny; one would think he'd know Naruto better by now.

Shikamaru spoke up, "so the person on the pole out there was one of Danzou's own men."

I said, "makes sense. I can't say how relieved I am at the fact that you're still alive though. I'm sure Konohamaru is too, considering his effort in the middle of the speech."

"What effort was this?"

"He did a fully fledged tackle kunai assassination right into Danzou's spinal cord before he was going to kill the guy who was supposed to be you. You would've been proud."

"I am anyway, for sure. Before going to official business, where's Sakura-chan?" God damn it. Why is it the time for giving bad news always seems to come so quickly? He started to get worried very fast when I didn't respond immediately. "... Where is she?"

I steeled myself. "Sakura and Tsunade have been missing since the night after the raids. My guess would be that Danzou kidnapped them considering there was an attempt to blow up my apartment with me in it just this morning." His face was no bullshit, and his eyes were partially concealed by a tuft of hair that was hanging down, which is strange, considering it was there previously with no effect.

Five agonizing seconds passed with everyone in the room holding their breath and waiting for the response from this now very grave-looking leader that had arrived so victoriously but a moment before. "What progress have you guys made in the meeting so far? I arrived right when Shikamaru began to talk all idealistically comparing us to Danzou."

I took the cue from Shikamaru to explain. "We decided to set up a camp in exile, so to speak, in order to take the final steps in toppling Danzou." Naruto gave a somewhat sad smile, with a small acknowledgement of something about that I suppose he found funny. "The only problem we found with that is the fact that almost the totality of the territory immediately outside of Konoha is forest."

"I got a spot. It's hopefully still blank from when I used it." I gave a quizzical look. "It's where I trained. You'd be surprised how hospitable an area of land can become when it's pelted with wind, water, fire, earth, and lightning over and over again." _All five?!_ "Yamato-taichou, if I help you out a bit with some extra chakra, a decent camp should be a piece of cake, right?" Tenzo gave a dumb nod, as if surprised that Naruto had planned this far ahead. "Then, the only thing to plan would be the specific extraction points and times. But, first of all, raise your hand if you're okay with going away from the village for a bit in order to stage an assault against Danzou's forces in a place other than Konoha in the interest of the civilians' safety?" He looked around contentedly as everyone in the room raised their hand.

"Good then. I have an idea. If you all would bear with me, for a smoother transition until we truly want to act, I can replace all of you as we set up outside Konoha with shadow clones in henge." _Brilliant. Imagine that: Danzou's army suddenly poofing out of existence..._

Shikamaru had been keeping his eyes closed with his odd kata for a long time. He suddenly spoke up. "In order for this to work, Naruto, you would have to have a complete handle on the personalities of those that come in contact with root or are suspected of being in the resistance. That just isn't realistic."

Naruto scratched his chin. "Uhh, actually I have a technique that'll suit the purpose beautifully. Kakashi, to illustrate, would you go behind that screen for a moment with this guy?" He hastily summoned a clone. I raised my eyebrow quizzically. Naruto's face went flat. "You've been reading too much, you dirty old man. Just go." I moseyed over to behind the screen. The clone grabbed my head at my temples with both hands and I suddenly felt slightly afraid. "Okay, just relax for a second and close your eyes. I felt an odd tingling in my temple, and in the black of my closed eyes, I saw tiny crackles of crimson appearing and reappearing so fast that you have to wonder if they were ever there. Suddenly I felt a pulse of chakra and saw the nine-tailed fox. My eye snapped open and all chakra communication stopped. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't in front of a mirror. "Hello sensei." The voice was perfect. I brought up my arm and waved it around, only to be mimicked by him perfectly. I told him to stop it.

We walked out into the view of everyone else. The real him chimed, "so, can any of you tell the difference?" People looked back and forth.

Shikamaru prodded, "what's the most important thing to shinobi?"

I looked at the fake me, only to see it having went to look at me at the exact same time. "The most important thing for shinobi is loyalty to one's comrades, for if that doesn't exist, the mission will not be completed, and the foundations of a village and relationships between us as people can," we exchanged looks again, "not," we continued to look at each other with raised eyebrows, "exist." _Damn. This guy's good._

People were pretty impressed. Naruto further explained that his actual conscience didn't receive any personal information about the person's past or anything, but the clone just automatically figures out how you'd react. Pretty handy jutsu. I threw in my two cents. "The process is a little scary, but it's really nothing compared to what one would normally expect to go through for that kind of synchronization. I'd say it's well worth it."

"I can just make a clone for most of you, but I'll have to use that technique for the higher-ups who are in regular contact with Danzou." Discussions continued through the hours, but Naruto seemed the slightest bit distracted, and I could understand why. I'd be worried to if my woman was kidnapped by that crazy freak.

The issue of actual battle came up, and Naruto looked apprehensive about saying what he was going to. "I regret to say I won't exactly be of much help during the battle. Apparently Danzou was fucked up somehow on the night of the raids. Either he was somehow weakened or he was flat out toying with me. I'll be occupied with taking care of him." Discussions continued.

The meeting eventually wound down. Naruto got up to get going. "So, how did you like your first foray into leadership?"

"Heh... I think I could get used to the whole Kage thing. One last thing. You don't think Danzou would have killed Sakura-chan and Baa-chan right?"

"I think he has a bit of a better sense of self preservation than that. After all, he managed to go all those years without crossing your father despite all his , in Danzou's eyes, detestable efforts to actually make the Leaf a better place. I thought he'd learned not to mess with your line a long time ago."

* * *

**AN: Here's finishing up my longest, most delayed chapter yet. I didn't get this out by the 14th like I'd hoped, but I'm going to start ch 10 tomorrow, so that should make it much faster. I'm finishing this at a place where I won't have internet for a bit, so along with having had final exams all week (FML!!!), my list of excuses is finally complete. Let me know if you guys liked the different POV, or if I got it completely wrong. How'd you guys like that arm scene? Please review!!!**


	10. The Calm

**AN: Ok, here I am, starting this, as promised, a day after I finished the last one. It's the fifteenth, so, based on my underestimation last time, I'd say you'll probably reading this on the twenty-third. Go figure. Things are returning back to normal after the holiday season, so for a while I should be posting a bit more regularly. If you guys want to see some little bit of fandom, look at my profile real quick where I made the case for NaruSaku instead of NaruHina. I know I'm sort of preaching to the choir by plugging this in a NaruSaku story, but still. It's not that I don't like Hinata as a character, it's just that her personality just wouldn't work with Naruto unless she grew some balls right quick (using a figure of speech). Anyway, onward!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Couldn't figure that much out?**

* * *

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter X

The Calm

_What is purpose? It is the reason for doing something, normally for one's own personal gain. What is the purpose for selfless deeds? Do they truly exist? Is the claim of their existence simply a means to the end of positive appearance? Is it truly possible for a man to accept or deny the existence of anything, especially so abstract a concept? Can we will ourselves to do so? Can we control ourselves well enough to accept the less ideal answer? What is an answer but another concept of truth? Is truth attainable at all? Is any reaching for it only destined to cause it to slip further away? What is truth? Does it truly exist? Does the attempt to define truth only obscure it's definition further? Does truth exist? Is any attempt at truth based on simple sensory detection? A Genjutsu would then be truth. No, I suppose the only thing I could possibly know for sure is that I exist. Otherwise I wouldn't be thinking. I think, therefore I am. __**CHRIST, WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!**_

This interruption made my eyes snap open, only to see the empty forest around me and realize who actually interrupted me. Having a voice in your head that can comment and become annoyed is actually a very peculiar thing. _You know, intricate philosophy is much more difficult when there is another voice up there interrupting. __**Just give it a rest for a while, kit. For fuck's sakes, you've been at it for hours. **__I'm going to be a leader. I have to get my ideology straight. Besides, I think I might be on to something with that. __**Either write a goddamn book or give it up and work on your fighting. Whatever you do, don't just let that crap float around up here. It makes shit all wispy and metaphorical.**_Despite everything, I laughed at the image of Kyuubi becoming uncomfortable with all these deep thoughts floating around his inner sanctum like incense smoke. _**Shut up.**__ Sorry. Anyway, we still have time to kill before Sempai shows up and we have to start building that other village. __**Not judging from those four patrol signatures I picked up.**__ Shit. I'm on it._

The leader was stone, but the three subordinates behind him were very weakly managing to conceal their fear. They stopped. "Namikaze Naruto. We only wish to speak."

"Really?" I was flying around while I said that, so it came from everywhere.

"We have come to strike a deal with you." Suddenly they saw themselves all get decapitated at once. Then I deactivated the Genjutsu. One of them keeled over and threw up. The leader was even shaky now. "Wh-why did you do that?"

"You were a little too cocky for my taste. Anyway, what were you talking about?" _**Tone it down a bit.**__ What, I have a reputation to live up to. __**Yeah, but being a ruthless brigand isn't exactly the reputation you want if you're going to become hokage.**__ Fair enough._

"Danzou would like to offer you any amount of riches or territory in the fire country as long as you leave peacefully and do not return to Konohagakure. To show you how serious Danzou is about this opportunity, I have been sent here with two billion yen." He suddenly looked around frantically when his three subordinates passed out. I walked out into the open. His eyes caught mine and widened. He was a root high-up, but he probably hadn't actually seen much battle. In fact, he was green as grass judging from that look in his eyes. They said he expected me to morph into some sort of monster and bite him in half. I wasn't even using any extra killer intent. I was standing up straight and looking at him with an unwavering gaze. I was surprised at how I towered over him so.

"How old are you, kid?"

"N-n-nineteen..." His eyes were darting around, looking for some avenue of escape, despite the fact that I'd yet to truly respond to his offer.

"Relax. I'm not going to kill you. Being so young, I'm assuming the history of Konoha is still pretty present in your mind. Do you recall a big occurrence in the village when you were twelve?"

He hesitated, unsure if he should answer. For being a root, this guy was not hiding his fear too well. Then again I suppose his mission was in critical condition at this point. "I was in the root training facility. They don't allow us to remember much, but I recall hearing that Danzou, our right leader, had killed Uchiha Madara and ended the Fourth Great Shinobi War."

My eyebrow raised. "Is that what they told you? Nothing of a soldier with a cape or anything about a toad?" He shook his head slowly. Of course not. "Here's a little bit of history for you. There once was a great clan, a branch early in the line that became the Senju. It was the Namikaze clan. It survived all the way to the Fourth Hokage and his son. The son was the person who truly killed Madara while the Sixth twiddled his thumbs behind a desk. However, the son was exiled by his beloved home village three years ago, and is now being offered about a third of his rightful inheritance to scurry away and never contact that contemptuous filth you call a leader ever again. With that, I leave to you a question. What kind of son would I be if I left me and my father's village in the hands of a liar, a usurper, and a murderer?"

He sputtered, though now he was scared for a much better reason, considering I gave a pulse of killer intent. I turned around. "Thought so. Take your comrades and your damned money and go back to Danzou. Tell him the first steps have been taken to end him." I was walking away dramatically. Then something occurred to me. "If you'd be so inclined to live," I began, "I can offer you something. Spy on Danzou; tell me all the workings of his innermost sanctum; and I'll be sure you don't die when the shit hits the fan."

He was looking back and forth again. "I... uh... s-sure. I'll spy on him. Can...Can I become part of the resistance?"

"I'd actually say don't worry about that for now. By the way, compare your data with and tell it to a root named Sai. He's another resistance mole, not to mention a good friend of mine. Go, and tell Danzou everything but our little talk. For assurances sake, I'm going to watch you and make sure you don't tell Danzou about everything. Trust me, if it turns out I shouldn't have trusted you, I, or Sai, could kill you in an instant. That's why I gave you a choice."

His face had calmed a bit and he was just a little skeptical. "Instantly?"

"Well, Sai can send a pack of ink lions to figuratively gang rape you. As for me, look under your jacket." _This is going to be good. __**Heh...Sadistic bastard.**_

He opened his jacket and was shocked to find three explosive tags. _Ha ha! Priceless!_ "Yeah, I wouldn't try any funny business if I were you. One more thing. I think there are two prisoners of the resistance that were captured by Danzou. They're both female medics, if that helps. Do you have any information?" He scratched his chin after he had frantically ripped off the tags.

"I can't think of anything like that at the moment, but if I hear anything, I'll be sure to let you know. I'm guessing you're involved with ...um... one of them?" _Sharp kid._

"Don't overstep, but yeah. The other's like a mother to me. If a hair on either of their heads has been touched, I'm going to blow a lot more shit up than I would have otherwise." _**That's an understatement. **_"Alright, go." _Wait a sec. _"What's your name, kid?"

"Izoumaru." He then ran off and my clone followed him. It'd be a shame if I had to kill him; he seemed like a nice kid, especially for a root.

* * *

Night fell, and eventually Yamato showed up; so began the long and arduous process of repeatedly transferring chakra to him and telling him what to make. I was again impressed by the extremely practical and useful skill of Sempai. After a full night's work, we had created a very impressive fort, with several barracks for lodging until we took the village back. The little area I had cleared out in training had proven too small, so before construction of the walls, had to practice some wind ninjutsu. I'm sure Yamato wondered why we couldn't just use the lumber from the trees, but then again we had no tools, so whatever. Overall, we had created a large wooden castle.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" I summoned Gamakichi.

"What'ddya want boss?"

"Remember that jutsu I worked with you on?"

The toad seemed to consider. "Which one?"

"The protective one. You know, with the dissolving shit." He looked at me weird.

"Have you finally found a use for that?"

"Yeah, it's right behind you." He turned around to look at the fort and I jumped on his back.

"Go. Target mainly the walls, but get everything if you can." I finished that by putting my hands on the back of the toad's head and pumping through a bunch of converted chakra. He jumped up, doing toad katas all the time. He said some jutsu name that was way too long, and then shot a pinkish foam in a cloud over our new city. It descended and diffused into the wood, tinting it with a reflective finish.

Yamato was looking confused throughout this entire thing, so I explained, "the jutsu releases a fire retardant that will cling to the outside of things and make them unburnable. I figure if the shit hits the fan and we have to flee here, it'd be best if the entire place wouldn't go down with a simple Katon."

We finished up and talked for a bit. He got to something I remembered that I forgot to mention at the meeting. It's not like it was all that critical, but I suppose it might make things much smoother. Or it'll completely backfire and I'll have started a war. Yamato asked, "so where did you go for the three days between the raids and the meeting?"

"I made a quick trip to Suna and got some insurance."

His head turned slightly and his eyebrows narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Gaara told me that as soon as we claim to have taken over, Suna will only acknowledge me or Kakashi-sensei as Hokage. Plus, if the shit really hits the fan, he has a team of elite Suna shinobi to back us up. I tried to insist that the last part wasn't necessary, but he wouldn't hear it. I just really hope this whole thing doesn't cause an international war."

He rubbed his chin. "Yeah, I wouldn't be worried except for the fact that Kumo has started to become economically interwoven into Danzou's regime. Knowing Danzou, he might try to take us by surprise and we'll be met with a combined Root-Cloud force, which would blow us out of the water."

"Didn't Shikamaru say we outnumbered them three to one?"

"Well... That's at full strength. We only had a bit over half our forces at the meeting. Plus that's assuming that the non-root shinobi that we have yet to show to the resistance would join us as well..." _You've got to be kidding me... _"You can see why Shikamaru didn't want to say it like that though. With our forces at the meeting, it's three to two, and with the non-root shinobi, if they allied with root, it's a pretty even fight." I dragged my hand down my face, I guess to try to wipe off some of the tiredness that had just arrived on it like a pie. _**Well, that's fucking great.**__ To think, I had thought this might be easy. __**Don't forget that you can't directly aid them either. I think you might've seriously underestimated Danzou. **__I still don't get how I could've done all that shit and he could be standing up again within three days. __**Most likely, the one you maimed was a double or it was some sort of ridiculous jutsu. **__... Dammit._

"Eh, we'll get 'im. Anyway, when should we start bringing people out here?"

"Actually," Yamato began, "I think it might serve us best to actually do it all in one night. That way this camp won't be discovered with a small, easily killable resistance force in it. There's only about an hour and a half till dawn, so I don't think right now would be the best time. Best to let Kakashi-sempai know and get his opinion on it."

My face fell. "Dammit, why do we have to wait that long?! Time ain't an issue anyway, I can get everyone out in ten minutes if need be!"

Yamato's face turned stern. Here comes the lecture from a sensei I'd long since surpassed. "Be patient. Besides, why would you be in such a hurry as to jeopardize the objectives?"

"Really? That bastard's got Sakura-chan and you're wondering what's the fucking rush!?!" _**Whoa! Calm down kit! **__Why the fuck should I!?! She could be on the floor of a prison cell rotting right now and people want to waste a whole 'nother day!!! __**First of all, don't go there.**_ I had forgot that a small margin of my emotions leaked onto him, and even a small margin of this feeling would be greatly unsettling at the least. _**Second of all, he's still, as of right now, your superior, and you just disrespected him. **__Great, I can get two lectures in one. __**Apologize, snot!**_ "... I'm sorry, Yamato-taichou. You can see where I'm coming from though."

He looked down and seemed to shake it off. "As much as I know you'd like to go as soon as possible, I still say we have to wait until I get Kakashi-sempai's okay. That's an order." I nodded. Now was not the time for dissent, I suppose.

"Right. I'll stay out here and defend this area. Should I spy on him with a clone or two?"

"Affirmative. I know Kakashi would give the full go on that. Use henge, and if you get hit, don't show that it's you. And try not to leave a trail of too many bodies, regardless of whether you hide them."

"Aww, but Sensei...!"

"No buts. I'll see you at sundown tonight."

"Later. By the way, I should have some inside intel by then through this mole I managed to persuade." He answered with an affirmative and bounced off. I jumped up onto the highest tree nearby and began meditating. The sunrise was beautiful. Flying shades of orange, clouds of red, wisps of pink. I saw the fleeting hints of pink, the changing canvas of the sky, and was mesmerized. I saw the pink and was biased by memory. _Please be okay, Sakura-chan... Please be alive..._

* * *

I made my way to the hokage tower, holding onto the guard ledge with a root turned away from me talking to another one directly in front of me. I tossed up a kunai that would land in between them and immediately pulled myself up. I hit the back of the outermost root and implanted a kunai in his spine. Then I grabbed the kunai I had tossed and shoved it in the throat of the other to stifle the shout that was fast approaching. I henged into the appearance of one of them and tossed the bodies down to the stream below. _I hope nobody saw that._ I made my way into the halls and was surprised at how dismal and formal even they looked in the presence of Danzou. There was a guard standing next to the door.

I walked progressively closer to him, and counted out the timing. As I went right beside him, I turned and swung my hands at his head. Connecting with his temples, I let loose a huge pulse of chakra, turning his brain to mush. I estimated about ten seconds until someone will have come out to check what it was. I had jumped up to the rafters and tied the body to the dark, shadowed ceiling and arrived back down , henged as the guard I'd just disposed of. Sure enough, a root opened the door, "what was that?"

"Nothing happened. I'm a little jumpy tonight, and I let that out when I saw a rat."

"Wow, man, you're a pussy." He ducked back in, and I was relieved at not having to answer, for I surely would've been found out, and I was entertained by the frankness of the superior's comment. I gathered sage chakra, invisible to the senses of root, and listened into the room.

I saw inside the office a fully limbed Danzou looking pissed off. More pissed off than normal, that is. "Have we had any word on the movements of the resistance yet?"

"Nothing new yet. To be honest, I think you've successfully quelled the treat, especially with that display. Most believe he's actually dead, and if he has half a brain, he's up in the mountains somewhere, never to return. We have the issue now of what to do with the whores we captured."

Danzou let out a low hmm, with a bit of a growl. "Arito." He was now looking to the root on the other side of him. Arito had had his face clenched strictly forward, ever since the word "display" was said. "ARITO!"

He seemed to snap out of it and sputtered, "Yes sir!"

" I'll remind you that family does not exist in root. As of then, you had no connection to Erito and you still don't."

"Y-yes sir..."

"Bring the prisoners to us. Now." He responded in soldier kind and walked out the door. I didn't make any move as he walked by. I noticed him shake his head in frustration when he was a couple feet away. I waited patiently.

About a minute later, Sakura and Tsunade were being led back up the hallway by handcuffed wrists. Sakura looked like hell; there was just no two ways about that; and Tsunade was tired-looking. I saw dark trails down Sakura's face. _Shit... I can't rescue the right now since I don't have an escape plan... I have to wait until they're escorted back to their cells, so I can see where they're being held..._

They went through the doors, but as they did, during one fucking moment of slight absentmindedness, I let my head turn just a bit. Sakura saw that, and, as much as possible through the mask, our eyes connected. Hers widened before she was forcefully pulled inside. _Root don't turn their heads, dumbass!!!_ I mentally berated myself over and over again, despite the fact that no one else had seen. I again gathered sage energy to listen in on the conversation. They came to a stop in front of Danzou's desk. He stood up and walked to in front of them. "So, these are our little resisters." They didn't respond. "I know you two are at least somewhat reasonable, so I'll ask you outright. What is the resistance plotting?" They didn't respond. Danzou frowned. "Have they given any response to torture?" _!?!_

"Nothing besides screams, sir."

"Hmm." He batted Tsunade across the face with the back of his hand. Fangs bared. I let out an involuntary pulse of chakra. Tsunade moved back to the position she had been in before and looked up before spitting some blood on Danzou's cloak. He pulled out a kunai and held it to her neck. "Know your place, dry old bitch." I noticed the spike of her releasing the masking of her chakra. Suddenly she stomped, causing Danzou to recoil. She shattered her handcuffs and reached over to Danzou's throat, only finding it turned to tar in her hands. One of the anbu tackled her and pinned her arms with one hand while activating the chakra suppression seal with the other. Sakura was being held in a headlock with her arms being brought back down. She had broken the handcuffs, but hadn't gotten too far after that. Danzou materialized up out of the desk, and I couldn't really see where he was coming from, though I should have. He had definitely been toying with me.

"Take these traitors back to their jail cells. Do whatever you want to them, just keep them alive and sane enough to give us information." I had to quell my rage for the moment. I jumped up to the rafters and casted the quietest Genjutsu I could on the root that was escorting them. I fell in behind their group quick enough that I don't think Tsunade of Sakura noticed either. Sakura looked at the back of the head of the root, which was the same one as before. "How can you let him get away with this?" There was no response. "You must know that he killed a bunch of his own men in an attempt to kill one other ninja.

Tsunade had been walking with her head down. "Not only that," she spoke suddenly, "but he apparently killed one of his own men in front of the entire village disguised as Naruto. I wonder if you had any connection to him. The one who had to die for no reason. Arito, I think your name is. Your reputation as the youngest root to ever reach Danzou's inner circle reached even the medical corps. You might want to wear a slightly less distinctive mask. Also, I got word that the root killed was named Erito. Those names seem too linked for coincidence." He had ever so slightly shifted in his un-leisurely gait when the other name was mentioned. It went right by Sakura, but Tsunade's experience picked up on it. "Is that a yes?"

"No emotional attachments or connections exist in root."

"So... yeah." He didn't turn his head. He did pick up the pace though. He was breaking. "Erito and Arito, eh? Two guys, probably near the same age, with such similar names... That's the type of names I would give twins..." The same sort of twitch occurred, but this time even Sakura picked up on it. He was beginning to walk awkwardly, as one does while consciously trying to look normal doing a rudimentary task such as walking. They came to the prison cells, and he opened the door to one cell. They both went in there and he locked it. This was the only occupied cell in this mini-prison area, most likely one of Danzou's projects. He turned on a dime and walked away; I was careful to dodge him as he walked by. That's when Sakura noticed me. Tsunade had thrown me a glance along the way, but didn't seem too surprised. "'Bout time you showed up."

The hallway was empty, and I told myself I could afford to do this. "I'm so sorry for what they did to you."

"Don't be sorry; you didn't do it."

Suddenly Sakura's eyes widened. "Is.. is it really you?"

"Yeah, Sakura-chan, it's me. I wish I could break you guys out right now, but as much as I hate to admit it, I'm only a clone, and it's a matter of time before they trace my steps. We're right now working on setting up a base outside of Konoha, and we'll get you there as soon as possible. Sakura-chan, I'm so sorry to have left you like that after the raids, and I plan to--" she took me in a kiss through the bars. I released the henge. We pulled back after a fast battle of tongues, and I looked in her eyes. "I love you. Stay alive." I poofed out of existence.

* * *

My head was suddenly filled with experience. _Tower... Office... Hallway... Sakura..._ I let out a breath of relief that they were still breathing. I was meditating at the time, getting used to the new surroundings of our increasingly hospitable fort. I had clones stationed every thirty feet in a perimeter around the large area, though people weren't attacking. I looked up at the sky. It was already around 5:30, and my boredom had been at a peak. After recovering from the intel that was shoved in my head, boredom again reared its ugly head and I could barely take it anymore.

After a seeming eternity, night fell, and a tree suddenly sprouted in front of me. It rose up, widened, and leveled off into a flat surface. Suddenly characters became embossed in the wood. The message read, "Kakashi-sensei approves as well. You have the go to begin the mission. Best of luck." I stood up, put on my blank mask and sage cape, and flew to my village to begin it's dissolution.

* * *

**AN: Well, I'm sure you all are really pissed at how long this took (considering as of finishing this I'm four days past my adjusted prediction), but I had some writer's block, I had school, and blah. If you guys have a comment on the thing on my profile page, you can post that in a review here. Please please please PLEASE review!!! I admit fully to being a praise-whore and the more reviews I get from you guys the faster I seem to write, so please!**


	11. Lightning Strikes

**AN: Hey everybody, I'm sure you all are mildly irritated by my lazy postponement of chapter posting, so I'm going to bore you all with another boring, paragraph-long author's note. Hooray! First of all, in canon, holycrapSasukekilledDanzou!!! Sorry but that was really a shocker (Ha ha!) after reading the five or so chapters they dedicated to that fight. This fic is completely irrelevant now, isn't it? Oh well, don't worry, I'll keep writing this. I'm not going to make any promises (or predictions, considering how those turned out last time), but I'm starting this on Feb 3, so I suppose you can see how long it takes for me to write these based on when I post it. This ends up being a fairly slow chapter of a lot of speeches, buildup, and stage-setting, so sorry. Anyway, I find myself fairly challenged with the personalities and appearances of some of my characters. I need to characterize some more humanity into Naruto considering how I had him as a killing machine, I need to make Sakura less useless, I need to make Tsunade less haughty, and I need to make Danzou look like less of a cat-petting super villain bent on world domination and making small children cry. Wish me luck with all that. I really should start making outlines or some shit instead of just making it up as I go along...**

**By the way, if you guys haven't noticed this already, I make some references to things in the world, allusions and such, that would not exist in Naruto's world (Valhalla and such). My basic explanation for that is don't worry about it, and just enjoy the reference.**

**Addition on 2-13-10 (after reading latest chapter): WTF Sakura!?!**

**Addition on 2-20-10: Whew.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Sakura. But what if I did?**

* * *

Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto

Chapter XI

Lightning Strikes

The sight was peculiar, I have to say. The ninja of the resistance were coming in a wave through the forest about twenty meters wide, following the directions my clones gave them. There were many more than at the meeting. The stunt with the guy pretending to be me was probably pretty convincing. I guess when they saw me themselves they were finally convinced. I saw Kakashi welcoming them in at the gate and some other high ups further out, making sure the forces came the right way. Many of them were surprised when they saw our little outpost. I suppose it was pretty big. Overall it was about two square kilometers, one quarter of the size of Konoha with a few, I must say, lavish barracks. The thought occurred to me that this could be a functional fort for international purposes after this storm clears up. Just put another couple turrets on the other side and you have a full blown military outpost. Not to mention having some historical value.

I was on top of the steeple-ish spire put on the main hall facing Konoha. It was pitch dark outside, the only light being given off by some torches below me. That wasn't an issue considering the chakra beacon I was sending out. Cool trick I came up with. I can select who it affects too, so no root anbu suddenly go, "Whoa, why am I being drawn to this seemingly random location a little bit outside the village?" Though it's not like many are patrolling at this point...

I turned and hopped back down to ground level and went into the main hall, where people were already taking seats. The hall was much larger than I originally gave it credit for, a good 50 by 30 meters. People were settling into set up chairs at tables, and there was an air of medieval courtesy mixed with suspicion at this odd Valhalla. Pretty soon Kiba and a squad with him should be coming back with freshly katon'd forest fauna for food, and my only hopes as far as that is concerned is that they get something with more substance than just rabbits. They'll do in a pinch, but I've had to go weeks on nothing but those little fuckers. It sucks.

After waiting an hour just sitting up near the front at the leaders table (that was Kakashi's idea), I saw that the majority of people that were going to be there already were, and some were beginning to get antsy. So, I sauntered up to the podium having absolutely no idea what to say. I stood in front of the best ninja in Konoha, all of whom had already, in one way or another, somehow pledged to support getting rid of Danzou. "First of all, thanks to all of you for your commitment to this cause and I apologize for the rude awakening. Most of you know me, and to those that don't, I thank you further for supporting this cause while not knowing its eventual head. I am Namikaze Naruto, son of Namikaze Minato. Like all of you, I observed as a new Hokage, the sixth, ascended through the ranks of Konoha in secrecy and the guise of working behind the scenes to ensure prosperity and success. I stood by as he withered down every policy, every ideal that this village stands and has always stood for." I indulged in a brief pause as I noticed everyone in the hall was completely at attention, hanging on my every word.

"Like the rest of us, I stood by as Danzou did everything he has done. I can never forgive myself for this. Probably unlike all of you, I was thrown out of our village and told never to return. One random night, I was surrounded by several root anbu and taken to his office, where I was told to remain 100 meters outside the border of Konoha for the rest of my life. I complied; I was weak. I was since informed that you were all told I was dead, and that it was made public knowledge the fact that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki caused my supposed death. I did not die that night, but I am indeed the container of an age old enemy of the village, the Kyuubi no Kitsune. While I was in exile, the monster inside of me agreed to train me inside of my own mind. I entered a state of prolonged hibernation for two years that I experienced as ten within my own mind. I have learned things that will haunt me for the rest of my existence, and I have pushed my mind and body to the limits of this plane. I have learned many things, and I have come to the conclusion that we cannot allow Danzou to continue what he has been doing." I paused, and there were some light cheers. I saw Kakashi leaning on a wall looking impressed, Konohamaru looking awestruck, and the general audience looking enthralled.

"How many of you remember the time of the third and fifth?" There were a lot of cheers, and I smiled in spite of everything. "The third... he was a wise, loving, skilled, and truly kind master of the ninja arts. He was the first person to ever acknowledge me as a human being." The room was silent again and took on somewhat of an air of solemnity. "If you had the privilege to be assigned a mission by him, he showed you the understanding, information, and will required to complete that mission. He was a truly great man..." The air was thick now, not stifling as with something physical, but there was something there. "I don't know if you guys had the chance to hear him go on about this, but he, along with his son Asuma who died before the war, used to talk about something called the will of fire. For all the relative newbies here, that might be an alien term, but I've never known anything that was more important. I wish I could define that for you, but you must find it yourself."

I looked down with a generous pause. I looked up just high enough to catch Konohamaru's eye, and he nodded slowly with a look of glorious pride on his face. I stood up straight with a new look of determination. "The protection of that will, the Will of Fire, was important enough that every shinobi of Konoha up 'til recently was willing to die for it, including the third." There was that air again. Moments passed.

"... Then you all know who took over." A smile came to my face. The atmosphere was much too thick for cheers at this moment, but a fog was lifting. "Tsunade. The Fifth. Just seven years ago, the blonde you all at the very least know as the head of the Konoha Medical Corps was hokage. She was, in policy, very similar to the third, and even pursued even better benefits and economic policies for shinobi and civilian alike. In assigning a mission she showed the compassion her medical tendencies gave her as well as the careful consideration a leader always must take. I remember the journey I made with my sensei, another shinobi to give his life for the will of fire, to find her after the death of the third. She grew a motherly love for me, and she was the closest thing to a mother I've ever had. She taught my teammate and best friend as I went on my own journey a number of years ago.

"Now, I get all sentimental here because I want to make sure before we go any further that all here know what is at stake. First of all, the freedom, be it social, economic, or political, of the citizens will increase to wither if not for our intervention. Second, the fire that the First, Second, Third, and Fourth as well as all other shinobi to give their lives to this day have been fighting for has been gradually suffocating in the tightening fist of the Sixth." My eyes closed in thought, and I felt my face scrunch as I felt what I was about to say. They opened. "You remember the war." The faces of those over the age of 18 were suddenly stone. "We, and I guiltily admit _we_, have done horrible things. I am willing, and I wish with every fiber of my humanity, for reconciliation. But with reconciliation comes a promise not to do that for which we reconcile. I keep my word. As long as Danzou gives orders, indeed, as long as Danzou has any influence at all, I cannot make any such promise.

"Those deeds are not what the will of fire thrives upon. Konohagakure is not built on the corpses of innocents." I was spitting venom now, though at myself as much as anyone. "In fact, the blood of the martyr drowns our fire, until it will be nothing more than a waterlogged wick." _**Calm down, kit. **__Yeah... __** And tone down the metaphors a bit. **__Right._ "Danzou must be stopped if any semblance of something to fight for is to be maintained." Even those who looked slightly confused still had an indication of having had their minds blown. "Third of all, the safety of many is already compromised. Too much is in motion to stop now. If we do not succeed, we will all surely die for treason." I let that sink in. "Many have been captured and are being tortured as we speak. In fact, the Fifth and her second in command, both of whom I love personally, are currently in a secret prison in Danzou's tower. Many of you know this experience, so you can understand if I am somewhat flustered." _Where am I going with this? __**Umm... oh! You need to finish up with some sort of rally, some sort of call to arms. **__Good call._ "Now that you know these things, I can truly ask you: are you willing to fight for this?" I looked around. I was making sure to stare right into the souls of as many people as I could. "Will you fight for the Fifth?" A few yeahs. "Will you fight for the rights of citizens and shinobi alike?" A fervor was growing, and there were some cheers. "Will you fight for the will of fire!?" Shouts of valor. Kakashi was giving a rare authentic smile. "Will you fight for Konoha!?!" There were full on cries of nationalism and battle. I waited until the claps died down. "Thank you, all of you. I'd like now to turn over the podium to our best military strategist. Shikamaru!" I looked around. "Where is he?" Suddenly I saw Ino drag him through the door by the collar. She got him up to the front, elbowed him in the gut, and grabbed the cigarette out of his open mouth. She then shoved him up to the podium. I barely managed to hold in my laughter.

He fell on to the podium while remaining standing up. He straightened with his eyes closed. He opened one and looked lazily at the crowd, those of which that knew him were quietly laughing their asses off and those that didn't were wondering how he could possibly be their strategist. "Well, now that we've all seen me emasculated, let's talk strategy." He was pulling out papers as people actually laughed a laugh that Shikamaru was very willing to foot the bill for. I was slightly surprised that, with all this, people were still able to laugh at a good ol' fashioned angry-woman-with-a-rolling-pin bit, but it brought me great joy.

"First of all, before we talk about any sort of attack, I think it is time that we declare that we exist. We must let Danzou and the civilians know that there is a strong movement against him and that we will not stand for any more of his rule." Shikamaru looked to me. I faked deep thought for a moment, and then firmly nodded. Agreement rippled through the room. "I think any value that degree of surprise would give us is far out shadowed by the possibility of civilian support such a gesture might bring." That silenced any disagreement. "Now, in the likely event of Danzou being stubborn, I have prepared an attack plan." Shikamaru made a hand seal and a map of Konoha about 10 meters square rolled down behind him. There were various Xs and lines indicating movement of forces. The concentration seemed to be a line right between the camp and Konoha.

"As you can see, the bulk of this plan is an attempt to draw the root forces into a spot outside of Konoha so as to not kill any civilians and cause as little destruction inside the village as possible. I shall talk to a select few of the elites after this about what tactics in particular you will employ to draw out the enemy forces, but I warn you, that will be the most difficult part of the plan by far. Assuming that works, we have a simple army vs. army situation, in which you will be divided into four groups with subsets of short medium and long range fighters. The few medics we have will be behind the battle line as always, but because we are so few in number, it is more important than in most missions to realize as soon as possible when an ally is critically injured. This is why we have chosen the particular location we have. The area is a forested pass with a cliff on either side. The ambush we have planned is that of having napalm and Katon tags strewn throughout the designated area on their part of the pass." He was pointing a telescoped rod at another visual of the supposed battle area. "When our forces get back on the other side, we ignite the tags, take out a good chunk of their forces, and are left with a nice, charred, barren landscape perfect for a battle. Any questions on that?" People shook their heads.

"As far as actual battle tactics go: The elites that made the distraction will meet with their assigned group as soon as possible while the tags are going off. Meanwhile, a group of sensor types will be distributed over the tops of both cliffs. Along with dispatching any potential flankers, they can communicate by radio with shinobi down in the battle about particular threats. They will be expected to maintain a proper perimeter around the battlefield. Meanwhile, we will go with standard fighting tactics for the middle two, with emphasis on maintaining a steady effort and not being pushed back. The outside two will consist of our best strike-force shinobi, and they will focus on completely annihilating the force directly in front of them in order to circle around the remaining force in the middle, forcing them to surrender. This way, we can march into Konoha with a sizeable portion of their special forces in tow. We will bind their chakra for a day or so in order to not give them the chance to turn against us in Konoha.

"If everything goes as expected, this attack will take place on the day after tomorrow at approximately four P.M." Shikamaru paused. Suddenly he was bombarded with everything from 'What could you possibly be thinking sir?' to 'Da Fuck!?!' and all such things in between. The general fervor was concerned with the fact that the attack was to be in broad daylight. Shikamaru had his eyes closed and his mildly pissed thinking-face on in full and seemed to be considering the various objections, but anyone that truly knew him knew that he was dismissing every complaint internally, one after the other. "During that time, the patrols to be lured to ambush will be most present and nearby reinforcements most plentiful. I'll remind you that we're trying to kill as many of them with as little effort as possible." The quibbles gradually faded until everyone agreed to go with his plans. I, despite now apparently being the new leader, had remained quiet throughout this whole thing. Shikamaru said, "You will now be rounded up by your superiors and go through some training and organization. Report back here by O-200. Dismissed."

Kakashi was the first one to yell. "Far left flank under Hatake Kakashi..." Among the names was Kiba and some other good close and medium range ninja. It was very quick, as there were a lot of names to go through.

Bushy Brow stood up next, and I wondered why I had not been previously consulted. I suppose he surpassed older bushy brows a while ago, but still. He shot out a bunch of names for the far right.

Shikamaru repeated procedure for the near right and Anko did for the near left. I cringed inwardly for the assuredly weird training the people in her division were destined to endure. She told me why she did all the weird crap she did all those years ago, but there are much simpler, much more efficient ways to do the same thing, so the only thing I could reasonably attribute her unorthodox tactics to is the fact that she's secretly bat shit crazy. I remember a discussion with Shikamaru under a haze of sake where he said that there was something more than that, but what does he know.

The rest of the night was filled with jumping around the surrounding areas getting facts on each groups strategy, makeup, and overall competence. I was satisfied with the makeup of the forces, and I retired to my own little office to make my own strategy and think about what I was to say the following day.

Two hours in, I got a knock. Upon an invitation in, I saw that it was Shikamaru looking haggard. "Hey Naruto."

"Hey man. What brings you here so late?"

"Well, I have something that might help you in the revelation of the KR's existence tomorrow." He held up a piece of paper. It was covered in Shikamaru's excruciatingly neat handwriting. He wanted whoever was going to read this to be able to read this.

I scanned a few lines and my face curled up into a smile. "Since when were you so deep?"

He shook his head. "I've been thinking about what to say to that jerkoff for a real long time."

* * *

I woke up on a desk, lightly dribbling on an archaic scroll of Rikudo. I looked out the window; it was twelve noon. I decided it was now or never. I made my way to the spire of the main resistance hall and took in the forest. After about five minutes of that, I used my newly gathered sage chakra to high tail it to the border of Konoha. I saw the root anbu making their designated paces in the space atop the wall across the path and back. I hurriedly replaced one of them with a kunai and a henge. I made four shadow clones in the process, who hid. I used my disguise to get past the root next to me and did a Kuchiyose with one of my clones. I left toward the tower, the one disguised as an anbu talked to the other guards, and the other three went across the village to gather some info and organize some civilians.

I was on top of the building opposite the plaza and facing the tower. I pulled out four kunai and the paper Shikamaru wrote. I made a few seals and launched the kunai with the paper in front of it. The paper was pinned to the gate by its four corners. I threw them so fast that the two root at the gates couldn't figure out where they came from. They were halted in their efforts to tear it off of the door as soon as it arrived by the seal I put on there. It was about as useless as trying to tear the engraving off of a sheet of metal. One of them put a finger to his ear. A superior is likely on the way. I summoned a clone to see how that works out.

It was a lot more difficult than I remembered to cross the rooftops, though the experience was different in that I had to avoid being seen by highly trained shinobi spaced no further than ten meters apart. Still, I managed to make it to my destination without being seen. The view of Konoha was breathtaking, even in its current condition. I saw the government buildings on my left, the tower, the hospital, the council building. I wondered if they were there inside. In front of me, I saw the larger buildings: apartment complexes, clan holdings, and such. Near the borders I saw the small civilian homes, humble and simple, with the commercial district nearby. Thank God Danzou hasn't managed to change much. He tried after the fourth war, but the council actually managed to prevent him from doing so. Fortunately Konoha hasn't been blown up since the council became meaningless. I stood atop my father's head, and I steeled myself for what I was about to do.

_Ready? __**Yep. There you go kit.**_ I felt the chakra flow through me, and I channeled it to where it was needed. Let's hope I toned this down enough. "PEOPLE OF KONOHAGAKURE!" _Oh shit! __**Whoa! Turn it down kit!**__ I know I know!_ Even the echo of that made me stagger. I suppose that jutsu is intended to shatter eardrums, but I turned it down a lot already. I observed some of the people near me below fall over or suddenly falter in their daily activities. Those that didn't were all frantically looking around for their summoner. "I am Namikaze Naruto, defeater of Uchiha Madara, and leader of the Konoha Resistance. For several years, you have endured the endless abuses of a militarist dictator constantly disrupting the peaceful purposes of this village." They were all looking up at me. Every single one of them was staring at me with full attention. I saw fear, desperation, and hope in their eyes. People were out of buildings and away from their previous activities. "I come here today to offer you all an alternative. The Konoha Resistance formed recently with the goal of ending Danzou's tyranny. You have been told that your hokage Danzou will rule for many more years. This would mean more unnecessary taxes, more wars, more surveillance, less rights. This is not the way of the will of fire!" I paused for a second, and some of the bewildered civilians rose in some encouraging cheers. "If the previous hokage were to see how the ninja in power right now were treating the civilians, they would roll in their graves! If any Hokage would rule like this, they should not be Hokage much longer!

"I was exiled from this village three years ago, and I came back to find what he had done. The other day, some of you may think you saw me brutally killed by the dictator himself. This was a lie! I am alive and well, as you can see. According to operatives I have spying on the root force, Danzou did that to one of his own men in disguise. This all may seem random, and I am low on time, considering his root forces are on their way to intercept me, but I have one final preposition. If you would allow me, with the help of my comrades the KR, I offer to replace him. What say you?" I had been speaking very slowly, in an assertive and full voice. The response started as a murmur. They discussed for a moment among themselves, often with one or two instigators among the group whom I am very grateful for. It built up to talks, echoes of affirmation and agreement that Danzou's reign had gone on long enough. Finally, the village was united in cheers, full on shouts of glory and support for the KR. I smiled. "Thank you, all of you. During the adjustment, it is a top priority to keep all of you safe, so if necessary, make sure you know the route to the bunkers in the monument upon which I stand. Please allow the KR to handle any fighting that may need to occur. By simply supporting us, you have all done your part tenfold. Thank you, and may the will of fire be with you all." With that I did a back flip with an upward axe kick to the chin of the root that had just jumped up right in front of me. I landed and threw a kunai into his neck as he fell. I quickly made the seals and used the remainder of the chakra Kyuubi had given me to transport out of there.

* * *

I was hopping across the rooftops when suddenly I was bombarded with the experiences of the clone I had left at the tower gate:

_The superior showed up and immediately tried to tear it off. Even trying a kai release didn't work. He stood there and scratched his head for a moment, and it was hilarious how three anbu were brought to their problem-solving knees by a paper irrevocably bound to a door. The superior put his finger to his ear in much the same maneuver that had originally called him. I wondered if I was about to see the entire chain of command experience the same try-something-and-give-up situation. He nodded and then simply grabbed a kunai and carved the paper out of the door. Fair enough._

_I climbed up the side of the building, checking in occasionally to make sure the paper was still ascending. I followed it all the way to the window of the hokage office. I molded the tiniest amount of chakra and put forth a simple illusion, trusting that the image behind me was mostly stationary. I also used a bit to enhance my ears to hear through the completely soundproof glass. I saw the root make his way over to a Danzou who looked to be wondering what the hell this could possibly be, and I saw the words he scanned from over his shoulder: "Danzou, Rokudaime Hokage: We, the people of Konoha and the Konoha Resistance, find you no longer fit to hold the position of hokage. For a list of reasons why, consult the bottom of the page. When a leader becomes unfit to lead and only pursues his own ends, it is in the best interests, indeed the very duty of the subjects to not allow him to lead for any longer. Konohagakure no Sato was built on compromise for unity under the fair and just leadership of one man. You have fully violated both those concepts by forcing clans to remain in the village even when reducing their holdings randomly or cutting their influence in the council or otherwise, and by not putting the village's best interests in front of your own." It continued like that for a while until it got down to the list of various governmental actions and public statements indicative of why Danzou needs to be replaced._

_Danzou put it down and sighed. "I'm calling a meeting downstairs immediately to discuss this new development. Summon the usual people and bring them to the conference room downstairs. First take care of our little observer." Crap. Suddenly both root in the room turned and whipped kunai at my window and I poofed._

* * *

I made my way back to the KR compound and saw Kakashi leaning on the main hall building reading his horrible little book. "Hey Naruto. How'd it go?"

"Pretty well. They all cheered after a little speech, and Danzou got the paper Shikamaru told me to give to him. All in all, a perfect success."

The book shut with a plop. "So all that's left is the adjustment period."

"Yeah... I've always wondered how shit splinters when it comes out the back of a fan."

* * *

**AN: Alrighty then. Thus ends the chapter and thus begins another three week wait for another chapter. Oh well. I apologize for my fanboyness in the first AN but there was quite an intense string of chapters. I was not happy with Sakura at the end of that middle one, but it ended up being ok anyway. This chapter ended up being kind of boring and dry with lots of oratory and not much action, but with the next few chapters most likely being bloodbaths, I figure that one relatively short chapter of development isn't a big deal. I'm considering changing the name of this fanfic to something slightly less vague, because between that and the boringness of the first chapter I could see a lot of people not reading this, so let me know what you guys think. Maybe something like **_**The Konoha Civil War**_**, but slightly more interesting. PLEASE REVIEW!!! I write quicker when I get more reviews!!**


	12. It Begins

**AN: Hello again everybody. This is the start of big chapter twelve on Feb the 22 with the new name of The Konoha Revolution. This is going to be a pretty bloody one (or I thought it was going to be), so if that grosses you out or offends you for whatever reason, I don't know why you would still be reading this fanfic. Anyway, to address some of the things brought up in reviews: As far as Naruto and them "keeping face," I don't want to make a story where Naruto can randomly jump into a situation and pwn everyone and suddenly everything is okay. For any government to be stable, it needs to have the support of the people, and that's what this is assuring as far as keeping it slow is concerned. Plus, that kind of fic would be without conflict. If I was to end this right after Naruto kicked Danzou's ass in chapter 7, you guys would've been pissed. Besides, according to the recent chapters (which were not available when I was writing ch 7), Danzou can turn dream into reality and vice versa. You can't kill a guy like that so easily. Concerning the NaruSaku, I have absolutely no idea how far I'm going to go with that or what's really going to happen. That's as much up in the air as the rest of this sequence of odd events I like to call a plot. I've never written a lemon, and I don't really know if I should. Considering the quote, "write about what you know," I think I probably shouldn't (*tear*). Anyway, here we go:**

**Addition 2-23-10: For those who like the violence of this fic, the first part of this is really dull. Oddly enough its actually the first dose of something like romance to this story in a couple of chapters. If you're reading for the head-splitting, root dismembering violence, just go down a bit. If you're still reading this for the war-torn NaruSaku, a distinct minority of you if I'm not mistaken (please let me know if you are with a review), then be prepared for a wingman talk!! XD**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

Konoha Revolution

Chapter XII

It Begins

_Damn it... God, I hope she's okay... They mentioned torture... DAMN IT!!! WHY ARE WE JUST SITTING HERE!?! __**Calm down kit!**__ What the fuck do you mean!? She could be dead by now! __**Now now, we both know you would've sensed that, now please, stop thinking about this. **__Why? What do you care anyway? __**Remember that bleeding effect I told you about? **__ ... Yeah. You were serious about that?__** No, it was for shits and giggles YES I WAS SERIOUS ABOUT THAT!!! Now, my admittedly limited angst vessels are at an overload, so either stop thinking about this right now or find someone else to talk to besides me.**__ Enh. _My head was in my hands. I was up on the rooftop of the main hall. It was either very late night or very early morning; I didn't care to tell. The beauty of the sparkles above me was contrasted heavily with the pulling, tearing in my head. I was now almost completely devoid of thought. Occasionally one would try to pop up, but, knowing where it would lead, I snuffed it immediately. They all seemed to leave their own little puddle of blood and entrails on the place where I slapped it down and dragged it off into the closet of the back of my conscious.

"Well, you've certainly changed, haven't you?" _...?_ I looked up and saw my love's best friend, and I couldn't help but notice the coincidence considering Kyuubi's recommendation.

"Oh! Um... Hi Ino-chan!" My smile was plastered across my face as if to cover some horribly obscene graffiti that had been there before the principal could see.

Before I said that, she looked slightly concerned; now I could see that it was a full on worry. Damn her and her psychology. "First of all, I thought you would know that it's pointless to hide after someone's seen you. Second of all, what are you doing out here moping?" She was in a sweater and had a mug with water. Since when did we have mugs? Before I knew it, she was sitting down next to me and was firmly displaying a look that said, "You got some 'splainin' to do."

I tried to remain smiling, though it came out as pained and as mope-y as she was accusing me of. "I don't want to burden you with all the crap up here." I pointed to my head. I knew that she would inevitably not get the message. "What are you doing up here anyway?"

"Couldn't sleep. Tensions with the battle tomorrow and everything. But down turn it back to me. I'm the therapist, remember?" _Damn._

"Yeah, but aren't therapists only supposed to treat people when they ask?" _Maybe that was too mean..._ The eyebrow of her sympathetic smile quivered with a slight bit of irritation. I suppose I was victorious in breaking her determination the slightest bit, but now I felt like a dick for rudely spurning the efforts of a friend only trying to help.

"A leader can't have stuff eating at his head at any given time while he's supposed to be leading." _You have no idea._ "Anyway, start unloading now while you have the chance to get some of this off your chest."

I sighed. I had gotten to know Ino well enough over the years to know that, like Sakura often is, there was no arguing with her at this point. I don't know why the hell I seem to have so many strong women in my life. "I'm worrying about Sakura." Her vision narrowed ever so slightly, as if she had diagnosed the condition and was opening the medical textbook in her mind.

She sighed and a moment passed. "Me too. ... Though normally that wouldn't promote just moping from you."

"Normally as in the 'me' of three years ago?" She nodded. "Yeah, some stuff's changed since then. Now, for better or for worse, Kyuub actually complains about being annoyed when I think and worry about shit like this for too long. Plus he makes sure that I don't even think of deviating from the established plan."_**Tattle tale.**_

"Back it up... You... talk to it?" She was trying to approach this gently, which I appreciated, but I really didn't want to go into an explanation right then. _**Just get it over with.**__ Eeenh... *grumble*_

"Yeah. I can't believe I never told you about that, though, now that I think of it, it's only been like this since my training. It's up there, and... well... you know how you can make your own voice of thought in your mind?" She nodded politely once again. "Imagine having another voice up there that talks almost completely independently of your will and also happens to be a master at archaic jinchuuriki ninjutsu." She seemed to consider for a minute, though there was a shift about halfway through to her thinking what she could say to that.

"Okay, I'm mandating, meaning you don't have a choice in this, that you come to therapy on a regular basis after all this is over." _WTF!?!_ "From even the little bit I've heard here, your head is a complex ball of problems that you've never really had the chance to talk through except for the talking bits about honor and glory and ninja stuff before you kill an enemy on a mission, and even with those, that doesn't happen anymore. Just from what little I know about your life I can predict some _major_ abandonment issues, difficulty with trusting the average citizen you've never met considering how they might have treated you in the past, plus I-don't-know-what-else with an extra voice in your head." _**I've got to admit, kit, she kind of has a point. **__Why the fuck are you saying that!? __**Well, most of what's up here is pretty clean, but there's about half of it that I'm even afraid to go near. **__I don't know if you heard her, but she's saying you're part of the problem. __**Well, I admit that's extremely true. We've made our peace with that. **__But I don't wanna go to therapy!!! Fuck! __**There's no point in protesting at this point. **__*sigh* I know. First off, Ino's pretty scary all by herself, then if she got Sakura's support..._ I noticed she was looking at me worriedly again, and I realized that, lost in my little inner monolog, I had just been sitting there spacing out.

I sighed in failure. "Okay, whatever. Whatever's best for the people, right?" She nodded, smiling sadly. My thoughts fell back to Sakura. "God, why am I just sitting here?! She's in danger every moment we waste!"

She spoke slowly, gently, comfortingly. She was a very good psychiatrist. "Look, whenever someone we care about is in danger, it's in our nature to immediately want to jump up and go help them. I'm pretty sure you've already considered in this situation that for this gigantic group of shinobi to be without a leader for whatever amount of time would be bad. They and the civilians need to see their future leader coming through the gates when the time is right. ... Aside from that, I have the uttermost confidence that Sakura will make it through this. She's endured a lot up to this point, and being in a prison cell knowing that her knight in shining armor is quite literally on the way with an army in tow is far from the worst possible circumstance." I considered this. The worry ebbed the slightest bit, but it was still there. I suppose therapy is a journey of one thousand miles taken in single steps.

"I guess you're right..." I tried to shift my thought away from the worry again; I even allowed that it could be about Sakura as long as I wasn't being a mopey little bitch about it. "I can't wait to see her again."

"Naruto," she began, taking on the more friendly, gossiping tone that I was more used to hearing her converse with, "you really do love her don't you?" For a moment, I couldn't figure out what to say to this. 'No fucking shit' was what I wanted to say, but Ino was being a good friend up 'til now, so I went more gently.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." She seemed to nod, and there was a certain awe about her face, like she was a little girl that was told she was going to have a younger sister, which was why her mommy's tummy was getting so big. "I don't know how, I don't know why, hell, I don't even know for how long, but I know I do."

"When did you... know...?" The psychiatrist Ino of a moment ago was gone. This was the Ino that I'm happy to have gotten to know as a good friend in the years since the war. She was as attractive as Sakura, sure, but I didn't see her in the same light. My eyes would wander, my thoughts would follow, but my feelings are the most stubborn facet of my being that I'm aware of. Instead, she was a casual friend who often hung out with me and Sakura, especially if we were with the whole group, and she was always willing to talk honestly about things. I think that's probably what most inspired her career, besides her clan's jutsu: she was an incredibly honest person, and she did not fret in the face of the most fucked up problems, the most difficult truths. This fostered in me an immense, earnest respect for her, as well as the enjoyment her company often brought.

"Way back, just a little bit after the war, I actually went out with Hinata for a bit. Now, I hold no disrespect or bad feeling toward her, but it couldn't work. Whenever I saw her laugh, I thought of Sakura. Whenever we went out anywhere, I always thought of Sakura. The few times we kissed, I couldn't not think about Sakura. I broke up with Hinata eventually and sulked for a bit until I came to the self honest answer that I simply loved her, and until I felt otherwise, I would live doing whatever I could to have her be happy." I was looking up at the sky now, reflecting on my past. "You know, there was a bit of time there where it really seemed hopeless. I really wished that I didn't love her, but it didn't work. Everyone was happy when I finally noticed Hinata, but she was so shy, so quiet, I, I just didn't know what to do half the time. It wasn't even cute or anything; I'd do some sort of dumb shit that Sakura would never let me get away with and Hinata would just look at the ground and seem ashamed for what I did, thus making me feel like a dick and randomly introducing a bunch of turmoil where there originally was none.

"I mean, it was all that and the fact that she just wasn't Sakura. I couldn't get over that. Plus, I still remained in the 'friend zone' with Sakura all the way through dating Hinata, so whenever I was with one of them, I felt like I was cheating on the other. Which was only really true when I was with Sakura, but it felt like the other way around. I don't know..." She was quiet now. "Heh, you remember the day I was exiled?" She did. "I had just got her to agree to a date, the first real one, when I was going to go all out and make it the most perfect night for her. Then I got fucking exiled."

She was resting her chin on her upright fist and staring off into the distance. "Well, you've got to make sure you do that date as soon as you can."

I smiled. "I plan to. You should probably go back to bed and try to get a bit more sleep." She nodded slightly and stood.

"You should too. You're the one that's going to lead this crazy attack."

"I will eventually, but I've a bit more reflection I want to do before that. Sweet dreams."

She went inside and I meditated. A good few minutes passed. _**Uh... kit?**__ ...Yes?__** Do you sense that? **__... Yeah. __**I think it's time to saddle up. **__Yeah._ I stood up and looked in my supply pouches. 10 kunai, 5 tags, two flash bang tags, 20 shuriken in the holster, and a scroll with plenty more of all, not to mention my sword. That's probably enough. I jumped up to the spire. "Konoha Resistance, there is a large force of root en route to attack us! Wake up and set up a perimeter. I'm on my way to intercept!" My estimate was about two hundred. Danzou's heard where we are and is trying to snuff us out. I began to hustle towards where I heard their force. They were about halfway through the klick between the border and the camp. I ran towards them and stopped two hundred meters in front, and I got to the top of the tallest tree I could find.

_Fuuton: Cyclone Sweep!_ The blades of chakra flew through the bottoms of the trees the anbu were stepping through and dropped them, surprising the anbu. _Katon: Karyu!_ A dragon of fire swept along the side of the force, around the back, and up back towards me on the other side, trapping the root force in a wall of fire and isolating a square three hundred kilometer space. The entirety of the shaven field inside and the immotile masks on the soldiers were illuminated by the burning trees like the faces of an angry mob by the torches they bear. I was in front of all of them and they had stopped moving.

"Root Anbu! I'm going to give you the rare opportunity to turn away from your tyrant and join us. Do so now and you will not die. This is your last chance." No one moved. I assumed as much. There were quite a few of them. They populated the space I had isolated quite densely, about five meters apart from each other. I prepared to fight.

_**How do you want to go about this, kit? **__If possible I'd like to make as many surrender instead of die as I possibly can, so not a sweep. How about that technique we worked on? __**... Isn't that going a little overboard? **__They all have my skill, so they can stop when need be, so no. __**Okay I guess. Gimme a second to transfer... **_I felt the chakra coursing through my body, and I converted it to my own as fast as I could possibly keep up. My eyes rolled back unconsciously. The marks on my face deepened, and my sage eyes felt a slit divide them. I felt fire rising to every inch of my skin. Too much longer of this and I'll actually explode. "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" I made 99 clones. We all continued to convert the chakra. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" We made ten each. The root now faced one thousand clones of me.

One root was getting shaky. He suddenly lunged at the clone closest to him with a sword outstretched. No one else moved, including the clone. I saw the moonlight gleam red out the back of my clone, and, to his credit, he only unearthed a wry grin. The clone grabbed the portion of the sword that was in front of him and snapped the blade. He grabbed the shoulder of the anbu and punched him in the gut with his other hand. The root had put his hands there to block it, but it was essentially as effective as holding up a piece of paper against a kunai. Instead, the root had the honor of having his now shattered hands forcefully rammed into his innards. My clone grabbed the part of the sword out of his back and turned it around before puncturing the roots chin going up towards his cranium. I saw the spray of blood coming out of the top and bottom of the root's head.

By then, I was watching it in slow motion. As soon as the clone had punched the root, all hell had broken loose. There were mes and root everywhere, flying back and forth. I saw the more experienced of the root, those in the earliest division Danzou had created; to their credit, they did not let back an inch. The only sign of weakness they showed was that of confusion when I didn't take the countless opportunities to maim them in unspeakable ways. They were puzzled that they only received cut after cut after merciless, relentless cut. Some were deeper than others, but they all showed the gleam of fresh, oozing vulnerability.

The slightly less experienced were getting frustrated. They had been sent on this valorous mission to show his leader's base opposition what-for, and this was their opportunity. Too long had these bastards been out here causing a disturbance, and so they would show us a lesson. But then why, oh why couldn't they seem to do any real harm? All they knew was that I had made a bunch of copies of myself, and those that knew jack knew that they were shadow clones. Then why didn't they poof when splattered in various ways?

The newbies had a look about them I had not seen in many a year. It was a unique look, one that is worn very rarely through the course of one's life. It was the look of battle-soaked, forcefully ignored fear. The quiver of a lip, the shiver at the breeze of a passing blade: all indicative of a deep, sealed away, mind-numbed fear of all at that moment, only pushed away because to not do so would mean certain death. It is the exact balance between the natural course of death and man's intervention in his own fate, and I was happy to make its acquaintance again after so many years.

The fires were dying down, both in the trees and the soldiers they surrounded. The blood loss was getting to all of them, though if my clones did what I told them to, none of them are dead. By the time Shikamaru, Kakashi and a squad of a few others arrived, I had them all neutralized. The blood of everyone had formed somewhat of a swamp of the place, and the smell was suffocating. I wrung out my cape, and Shikamaru's eyebrow raised at the scene of my tidying with so many root behind me. "Um, so I guess you have it under control?"

"Yeah, pretty much. What do you think we should----wait." I tsyu'd over to an anbu that was making seals for something. It was a Katon, whatever it was, and he was gathering a lot of chakra. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I had grabbed his arms to stop him from completing it.

"Too late demon." He glowed red. _Fuck!_ I did a hand seal. I and several of my clones transported to the squad and transported them out of there.

"The fuck, Naruto?!" I put a finger to my mouth to silence Kiba now that we were two hundred meters or so away. Two seconds. We saw a pillar of flame shoot into the air and a split second later, a shockwave staggered a few. _*Sigh*, damn it..._ I left my clones and transported back to the battlefield. It was a bloodbath.

I ran slowly back to the squad and met them halfway. "What happened?" Kakashi asked.

"I should've known they'd try that. I didn't see any tags, but I suppose all it takes is a Katon and a lot of chakra. ... There's very little left of them. I don't know how the hell Danzou's going to explain that to the civilians, considering there was randomly an explosion and fire pillar in the middle of the night, but if it means one thing, it means they know where we are." We were running back to the fort now.

Kiba suddenly jumped forward. "I'll take care of him!" He saw an anbu leaning in a rather relaxed manner against the side of the fort.

"Shit, Kiba no!" I jumped in front of the anbu and blocked Kiba's claws with my sword. Kiba looked angrily at me like I was insane for the second time that night. "This one's with me." Izoumaru had adjusted cautiously to a fighting stance, though certain nuances about it made it clear he wasn't expecting to have to fight. "What do you have to report?"

"Shit's going to hell in a hand basket. In case you haven't noticed, Danzou's figured out where you are. I see you've dealt handily with the force he already sent, so I think you're good for tonight, but tomorrow and forever after, Danzou's only going to ramp stuff up. He's scared, especially after you riled up the civilians as you did. They actually had meetings. I was told to spy on them. After taking care of my root partner for that one, I've been observing the workings of the civilians as one of them, then I snuck out and here I am. The civilians have organized protests for the day after tomorrow and every week henceforth until either Danzou reforms big-time or Danzou is no longer in power, which is much more likely to happen."

"What's the deal with the explosion jutsu? There weren't any tags on the guy that caused the huge explosion."

He suddenly looked tired, and I became fearful of the massive mind fuck that was likely to be revealed to me in the next few seconds. "It's standard procedure now. It's a self-destruction kinjutsu, and it's required to be known by at least one operative in every root squad. Danzou's been working on diabolical shit like that constantly since your raids last week." I sighed. Why did I make this whole scheme so elaborate, delayed? I thought it would make an easier transition between regimes for the civilians and impartial shinobi, but now the enemy's tactics have changed, and people's lives are more so in danger than normal. What the fuck!

"Alright... well, we've planned an attack for tomorrow, so I'll brief you on that a little later. All of you though might want to get as much sleep as possible. We'll regroup and reconnoiter in the morning and see if our plans should change. So... dismissed. I'll see you guys in the morning." It felt weird to be giving orders. I don't even know if that was a particularly proper instance for such an order, but it created a sort of level that seemed unnatural. I noticed Ino look back wearily for a moment, and I saw the sadness and worry in her eyes. I'm sure she saw the sadness and worry in mine. I abandoned my regular tactic of my mask and tried my very best to give her a slow, reaffirming nod, showing acknowledgement, courage in the face of what was acknowledged, and rounded out with a bit reassurance that I was going to do something, anything.

* * *

I had been up for the rest of the night with Izoumaru and, early that morning, Shikamaru, getting further acquainted and learning everything we could. Without the curriculum scrolls and many of the instructors, new root training has screeched to a halt. The root numbers are steadily decreasing, but Izoumaru's tone on that matter was as disconcerting as a slight tilt on the angle of his root mask. It told me of something he didn't want to have to say, but I noticed, so I suppose he didn't have to. I realized that the root had many more than he wanted to say. At one point he seemed to open up about something:

"Well, there's only one real variable as far as numbers go. I don't remember where I was trained." Upon a pair of raised eyebrows, he took the clue to elaborate, "When I was a little kid and my parents decided to train me to become an anbu and heard of the root program, I was taken from them and blindfolded. I arrived in some sort of facility where I spent the next four years developing my rudimentary ninja skills, emotion control, and eventually my 'family's' jutsu. The place was about two kilometers square and bare as far as decoration or normalcy goes. It was huge, sometimes as high as twenty meters. I still don't know where it was, but it was big, and it had a lot of root in it.

"It was only very recently discovered that the clan scrolls were missing." He suddenly looked guilty. I became fearful of what had happened. "The members of those clans whose scrolls went missing lost all power and influence as punishment. The council basically doesn't exist anymore."

My jaw had dropped, but the only hint of disturbance Shikamaru squeezed out was a wrinkling of his eyebrows. "How can Danzou field a non-root ninja army when he's taken the influence away from all their clans?"

"Oh, he still expects them to fight, but he just keeps them under tight wraps the rest of the time. I don't know how the fuck that's going to work, but he's doing it." _A slave army of people he thinks are his ninjas._ "Anyway, apparently that shouldn't matter. Good idea of yours to just replace all of them. Still, I can't help but shake the feeling that all of us are... missing something." I knew exactly what he was talking about. The adrenaline fading after that battle a bit ago had left an unsettling silence in the part of my brain devoted to strategy and politics. "Hell, I was even part of Danzou's innermost circle, but I still felt like he was hiding shit. It doesn't make sense that he would hide rudimentary things like troop numbers or facilities from me, but he was, I just know it."

I was able to sleep a bit before the time of the attack was supposed to occur, so two hours later, I was thoroughly rested and ready for another adrenaline high. I looked back mentally on the strategy meeting we'd had and I was happy with the progress we'd made. Not to mention the extra sub-plan we'd made that was to occur simultaneously.

* * *

We were stationed in a horizontal line parallel to the wall of Konoha. There were 40 of us, all elite strike force, most former black ops; among us was I, Kakashi, Neji, Lee, Kiba, Genma, Gai, Chouji, and others. By now the fake notice should have gotten to several of the root squads. Time to go be the lure to bring our white whale out into the open. I put up my hand with all five fingers up on it. _5... 4... 3... 2... 1... *tsyu*_

* * *

**AN: Okay then. There we go with chapter twelve of Another Tale of Namikaze Naruto and the first real chapter of the Konoha Revolution. I really hope I don't throw my loyal readers and reviewers off with the title and description change, but I really hope that it'll increase readership a bit and get more reviews. One of the reviewers recently asked where all the reviewers were which resounded with what I've been wondering vainly for a while now. Thanks everyone so much for reading, and, as always, PLEASE REVIEW!**


	13. Blast and Fallout

**AN: Hello once again everyone, and welcome to Konoha Revolution Ch 13. From here on out will be my effort to close everything up and end this long winded learning experience of mine. I've been working on this less and less as the months have gone by, and I think after this I'm going to take a break from fanfiction and try to craft my own characters for a change. If anyone else wasn't sure about the ending of the last chapter (I got a review asking about it), tsyu is an onomatopoeia word that I use for an extremely fast, transport-ish movement, kind of like in DBZ. As to the question of whether it's occurred to Naruto that Sakura or Tsunade would be being raped in their captivity and why he doesn't just up and save them at any given time, I'll probably answer the first part in this chap (I mean think about the mechanics of it... plus their extremely strong thighs and cheeks... do the math; any guy concerned about the well being of his cock would not risk it in such precarious of a circumstance), but I still have to think about the second part a bit. I admit I haven't given a great reason for that. I've given a few shitty reasons, but not any good ones, so, hopefully by the time you read this; I'll have come up with a great reason that completely fills up that plot hole. I'm starting this on the twenty-second, so it's probably been a while. Anyway, onward!  
Update March 30: Success of thought process for closing second plot hole! Hooray!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it's characters, or its copyrights. What, were you expecting a joke?**

The Konoha Revolution

Chapter XIII

Blast and Fallout

The invasion force I was leading was directly behind me and travelling painfully slow. We finally reached the trees next to the wall and were essentially right in front of them. The root were standing rigidly still on top of the wall, and there was no camaraderie or friendship or pity within their stare into the open air. I brought up my hand with my two fingers sticking up. I waited two seconds to make sure none of the anbu noticed the motion and then pointed down. Five ninjas dropped to the bottom of the wall facing the forest and aiming their gigantic flares up through a gap in the trees. Their leader nodded at me, indicating that they were ready for our signal. I looked to everyone else. They were ready and awaiting my command. I waved my arm and they scattered. I was alone again, and everyone else was off on their own little raise-hell-and-haul-ass mission to collect the root. We had considered all sorts of complicated tactics like Genjutsu or carefully planned group strikes, but we eventually came to the conclusion that good old fashioned shove and chase would work out just fine, especially with shadow clones.

I jumped to the very center of the village, having carefully avoided the root anbu on the border and all the squads in between. _Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!_ I made about a hundred clones and sent them to their own portion of the village. They spread according to voice radius and anbu concentration. I saw them all wrap a flash bang tag around a kunai just as I did. "We're all ready in here."

"All good here," crackled the radio with the voices of the mortar men.

"Same with all of us," confirmed Kakashi-sensei. "I'm ready when you are. Everyone be ready to haul back to the village when all this shit goes down. Naruto, I'll meet you at Bravo in 30 seconds exactly."

"Copy." I paused. "Okay, detonate in five, four, three, two..." On the count of one, I and my clones detonated the tags we had sent up at two. Flares hurled toward the destination of the battle outside of the village. A couple of government owned structures near the border were consumed by fanciful pyrotechnics. I suppose Kakashi was trying to make an impression. I saw several root squads all across the village suddenly take heed of the situation. I saw one in particular in which the root looked up at the fireworks which would be the beginning of their end, and the surprise of their faces all gradually dried up into the grim clay that they wear as a neutral expression.

I used an invisibility Genjutsu as another clone I had just summoned went ran off chased by two squads of root. As soon as they were no longer there, I hastened over to a spot about a block from the Hokage tower. There, I henged and walked lazily over to the entrance Kakashi and I had designated earlier. I met an equally inconspicuous looking-person there right at the thirty second mark. We simultaneously poofed into our real forms. He had on his anbu mask from back in the day, I assume, and I had donned the blank mask I had designed myself. We had our backs to the wall two meters apart from each other. He nodded to me and I quickly fastened a low power explosive tag to the wall.

Through the small hole in the wall, I quickly hopped onto the back of the root there and snapped his neck. I jumped up, taking his body to the rafters with me right as another anbu turned the corner of the hallway right towards us. I saw a dog scurry through the hole in the wall that the anbu had come over to investigate. He seemed mildly irritated when the dog sniffed his leg and licked his sandal. When he tried to kick it away, the dog hurtled up his torso and gnashed at his trachea. The scene was finally still with the anbu on the ground, his throat shoving blood on to the floor on either side below a face of pure, ghastly surprise with the small dog sitting next to him, covered in blood, contentedly wagging his tail. I didn't know whether to be amused or horrified. I shot Kakashi a look, and he shrugged.

Around us were the lower priority prisoners. In practice, they were innocent citizens that had decided to verbally disapprove of Danzou's dictatorship. I summoned shadow clones along the way who freed them and instructed them to go home safely and eventually meet up with the civilian organizer. Kakashi and I made our way through the catacombs of the tower. It sucked that we had to work our way up, but I suppose Danzou foresaw something like this rudimentary breaking-and-entering occurring. As a result, he placed his most important prisoners, i.e. Sakura and Tsunade, up closer to his actual office. There were several, I must admit, petty instances of Kakashi and I trying to impress each other with cool-looking, stealthy, or simply gory methods of removing the anbu that blocked our path. I found it interesting that Kakashi indulged in this little game of ours; in situations like this he would always accuse me of being immature and endangering the mission. I suppose this time he had something to prove to me or himself.

On the way, we stumbled upon a squad of four. Izoumaru had warned me of the root guard strategy: they used single patrols pacing small lots with a squad of four highly trained commanders trolling the sum of them all, keeping their subordinates in order and intimidating the prisoners. They were advancing towards the area below us, and we were carefully masking our chakra. I positioned myself above the center of the triangle made by the front three, the four of them being in standard 1-2-1 diamond formation. Kakashi was perched behind the last. I made some hand signals to him and he dropped down silently behind their leader who was in the rear. I fell and drew both my swords from each hip with the adjacent hand in order to have the blade facing downward opposite my thumb. When I was two thirds down, I saw one of their mouths open in a vain attempt to yelp before his inevitable silence. I sent a small pulse down to the sandals I had modified, and a small dagger sprang from the heel. I drove both swords into the centers of the crania of the anbu leading down into their spinal cords, causing both of them to flop. Simultaneously, I axe kicked rotationally in the air, sending the blade into his spine as well. Meanwhile, Kakashi had snuck up to their leader before he could activate the chakra alarm intrinsically routed through the root superiors, and, with a pulse of chakra upon the root's palmed brain, turned his thoughts, quite literally, into mush.

We finally made it to their cage. I quickly scouted out the seal on the outside that required the sharingan and the seals on the inside that created a hostile chakra matrix preventing entrance or access to the seals themselves without undoing of the sharingan seal. I had tried to transport in or even load some kyuubi chakra into the sharingan seal, but it was pointless. I was going over my work when I heard a peep. "N-Naruto-k-kun...?" My ears perked up immediately, and though I knew the voice better than my own, I certainly didn't want to admit that my being so long in rescue caused its owner to be in such an audibly fragile state.

"We're coming to get you out of there, Sakura-chan! Kakashi! You're up; I got your flank." He flew through hand seals at a rate even I was somewhat impressed with, and soon he was staring intensely into the seal.

"N-Naruto-kun... Shishou... She needs help..." _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!_

"Kakashi, hurry!"

"Shut the fuck up and let me work." He was way too focused as he said that. There wasn't a tinge of emotion. Despite the gravity of the situation, the part of my mind that saunters about at any given time randomly making judgments about people began to wonder if he'd reverted somewhat to his own anbu days of yore. That bothered me.

I saw Kakashi's commas rotating and noted the lines of blood gradually seeping into them. Characters from across the gate began to radiate towards the seal, and Kakashi began to quiver. The seal was a golden circular object fastened abstractly to the middle of the bars of the prison cell. There was a reddish jewel in the middle of the scaly gold, and on it was a dot with three marks surrounding it. They had begun to rotate corresponding to Kakashi's initiative.

The last of the characters on the bars reverted to the seal and the commas disappeared. The seal fell off and clattered to the floor, obviously alerting anyone within twenty feet. Kakashi remained where he was and twitched for half a second before clattering to the floor like the seal he'd just removed. He'd be fine. I saw Sakura in there. Despite being as beautiful as she is, she authentically looked awful. Kyuubi began to boil alongside my inner consciousness, and, equipped with all this extra energy, I gripped the bars. Before I could transfer the energy, I involuntarily recoiled due to the flood of electricity that began to flow through. _Damn reflexes._ Using all of my strength, I gripped the bars. Visible bolts flew up and down the bars and all through my body as I crushed the bars with my fingers. _Let's go, dammit! __**Yeah, yeah.**_ The seals were advanced chakra eliminators, not simple suppressors, but like suppressors, there were only two main ways you could deactivate them: the jutsu known by the person using them, or, in this case, a shitload of volatile chakra. The red chakra floated to the surface and I experienced the uncommon but not unknown sensation of suddenly plunging into a vat of boiling blood. My pupils dilated and slitted, my facial lines broadened, my teeth sharpened, and my fingernails became claws. I could feel my tissues begin to corrode and my nerve signals disrupted due to the electricity, but luckily the chakra was pushing it back. The bars shattered and the seals with them.

I ran inside to where I had originally seen her faded pink silhouette. From the door I couldn't see the shadowed figure whose head she was cradling. When the light got to her, a lot of the shadows I expected to fade didn't, and I saw the side of Tsunade I had only seen three times in my life up to that point. The pretty purple diamond that usually resided in her forehead was gone, and the resilient, spunky bombshell that usually kept me in line was reduced to the picture of a woman on a rocking chair in a lemonade advertisement. The bruises and shit didn't help much either.

"Do what you did to me after the battle." Sakura was now looking up at me pleadingly, and it was the saddest thing in the world. I hate seeing someone who prides themselves on their pride and strength is reduced. I also couldn't help but notice the risen Kakashi's puzzled look at Sakura's plea. Bastard.

"Of course," I said as I positioned my hands on her forehead and chest. _Kyuubi? __**Yeah? **__You think you could replenish her technique as you heal her? __**Well... It's a long shot, but I guess if she was able to get her wits about her fast enough, she could begin to gather the chakra into that dot of hers.**__ Let's give it a shot._ I summoned the energy, converted it into pure cellular energy alongside small bits of electricity, and seeped it into her system. Her eyes shot open and darted around, seeking an explanation with an element of panic that really worried me. Upon seeing the calming look in Sakura's shadowed eyes, she relaxed somewhat. "Baa-chan, I'm giving you healing chakra right now. Tell me when to switch to regular chakra, and you can refill your diamond thingy." She nodded and kept absorbing the energy.

She managed to quietly say 'now' in a voice that sounded horrible to me. It lacked the timbre, the pitch, the musicality of the voice of the woman that could assign you a mission and then punch you right in the junk if you showed anything other than joy at whatever mission you got. Again, I hate to see anyone reduced. She brought her hands up and began to make hand seals. I could feel the chakra welling up inside of me from what seemed like nowhere and then rushing through my arms into her. I saw the chakra floating to the surface where she masterfully changed its color to purple and arranged it into the cryptic looking lines leading to the purple diamond I expected.

The process was over, and I quickly turned to Sakura. Tsunade was breathing steadily, and her diamond was now in all its former glory. "I'm so sorry I had to wait this long to get you." Upon turning to Sakura, I quickly put my hands in the same place they had been on Sakura and began the technique.

She whispered, "it's okay. That you eventually came is enough." I could tell it soothed her and was making her more healthy, safe, and comfortable. I was extremely relieved. "Naruto-kun... You have to make them pay." This confirmed any suspicion I'd had all along. These fuckers hurt Sakura-chan, and their recompense will be swift and brutal.

I finished, and she sighed, relieved. As soon as I had pulled my hands away, she snared me into an embrace and hugged me as hard as my chakra allowed her to, like she was afraid I might disappear, or that this could be her last chance. I reluctantly pulled away; pressing issues are at hand. "Are you both okay? Some stiffness and soreness is to be expected, but other than that you're good?"

"Yeah, we need to get going. I assume this is one leg of the planned attack?" Sakura was now brushing herself off and I assume planning to leave.

"Yup. Kakashi, take them back to the front. Brief them on the way. I'll join up with you guys later." Suddenly Sakura looked concerned.

"Danzou?" _Sigh... Of course she would figure it out._

"I'll be really careful." I caught a kunai that had been whizzed at my neck just before connection. "Like that." I turned to my assailant, a root. "Stay safe, I'll reconnoiter later. Go!"

I looked back right at the time she did. I saw the look in Sakura's eye. It made me want to run back, grab her, and sprint with her in my arms away from all of this, to some place where we wouldn't be nobles, we wouldn't be heroes, hell, we wouldn't even be ninjas. We could live with nature, in harmony with everything instead of constantly dealing with the constant, pointless, endless contention of man. But, of course, even while this spastic fantasy played out in our gaze, I knew it couldn't happen. I knew I couldn't let it happen. There are people here, and I, if not in word, then at least in deed, have made promises to them. I keep my word. We might not live like that, but, as long as it's with her, I can sure as hell live like this.

She was pulled away by Tsunade and our gaze was broken right as I clanked upwards another kunai aimed at my neck and caught it soon afterward. "Hey buddy, do you have a woman? That, you know, you love?" The strikingly guileless anbu just stood there in a fighting stance with a sword drawn. No response. "Just silent like all your bros huh? Damn, didn't anyone ever teach all of you any manners? For Christ's sake, I've asked you guys stuff ranging from whether you wanted to give up to that last little question, and all I ever get is a load of that opposite-O-face and fucking silence. No Goddamn manne--" I brought one of my swords up from the sheath at my left hip and blocked his overhead swing. He proceeded to try another round of strikes and we engaged in a long, drawn out kendo match. I knocked off his sword's balance, grabbed the hilt out of his hand, and cornered him against a wall with both swords at an X in front of his neck, ready to sever the link at a synapse's notice. "SAY SOMETHING!" Of everything that could piss me off about them, it was their silence. I pushed the swords up until they drew blood.

"You're pitiful." That caught me off guard. "Using all this time and energy in the pursuit of pointless, illogical ideals." I raised my eyebrow.

"I wouldn't call them pointless or illogical. The fact that you think that trying to provide a better life for people is just that is proof that you have to die." I saw him bring up a hand and start to gather chakra. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Let's just say the quickest path to those tags you were about to detonate is through about four internal organs." He let his arm drop. I suddenly sensed some more guards on the way. A whole squad, most likely deploying as reinforcements. "We'll have to continue this later." I quickly used a Genjutsu and he was out. He would prove very useful if everything didn't go according to plan. Judging from his swordsmanship, he was near the very top of the root ranks.

I grabbed his body and sword sheathing mine and I jumped up to the rafters. The squad hurried through like men on a mission do, except for the last one that saw the empty cage where Danzou's most high profile prisoners normally were. "Hey guys!"

"Get the fuck over here! We have a crisis dammit!"

"But...Bu..."

"NOW!" It was good to finally hear some unprofessionalism. Though it reminded me that I need to hurry up so I can help everyone out back there.

I jumped silently across the rafters of the conveniently high-ceilinged hallways on the way to the location I remembered the Hokage's office being relative to Sakura's cell. I should've arrived there a long time ago. Something was up, though I hadn't felt any sort of chakra disturbance that would imply a Genjutsu being cast. That is not to say I couldn't have entered a Genjutsu. _Kyuub. __**Right.**_ He irritated my chakra flow and reality was hazy for a second. When it hopped into focus, what had previously been a hallway was now a wall covered with high power tags. They all lit simultaneously. _Shit!_

When the dust cleared, the clone I'd summoned to block for me poofed away and I turned around to see three root troops in triangle formation. That Genjutsu was probably intended to keep the prisoners from escaping by keeping them running in circles in their own minds. I whipped three kunai at the root, and, after blocking them, the two at the sides ran at me with kunai drawn. They swung at the same time and I back flipped out of the way. I saw the third root, presumably the leader, fly at me midair. I knocked away one of the kunai he swung with my left sword, but he blocked my attempt to take his arm off with my other sword with his other kunai. We exchanged a few more blows on the ground before I managed a kick in the side and he was launched away. One underling was back on me with the other close behind. He tried another kunai stab; I tossed up my sword, grabbed his kunai hand and used my other hand to dislocate his elbow. While he was still yelling in pain, I shoved him into his companion who dodged right into my axe kick on his cranium. I grabbed my other sword out of the air and sheathed them both. _**Smooth. **__I know, right?_

I grabbed one of the writhing troops and brought him up to my face. I loosed a generous amount of killer intent; I smelled urine. "Where is Danzou."

He pointed down the hallway. I punched him hard in the side of the head and he was out. I could've gone for a stealthier or stylish approach, but I was quickly losing my mood for such things. I lobbed him on top of his unconscious comrades. I turned the direction he pointed, and walked toward Armageddon.

**AN: Um, okay, I am sorry for delaying this so long. Shit's got busy at school and all that, so whatever. I was planning to go much further through the fight with Danzou, but I decided to stop-gap the whole thing right before. I won't make any guarantees as to when the next chapter will be. I've sort of rolled the idea of writing a lemon back and forth in my head, and I've actually considered it fairly seriously, so we'll see. PLEASE REVIEW! I'll admit I probably wouldn't continue this if I didn't hate discontinued stories myself, so please let me know whether to continue or what to do!**


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